DEVELOPMENT OF A BRIEF, MULTIDIMENSIONAL, SELF-REPORT INSTRUMENT FOR TREATMENT OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT IN PSYCHIATRIC SETTINGS - PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

Preliminary reliability and validity data are reported on a new, brief measure of psychiatric symptomatology, The Symptom Assessment-45 Ques tionnaire (SA-45) is a 45-item, patient self-report symptom inventory derived from the original Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90), using clust er analytic methods. The SA-45 consists of nine 5-item scales assessin g each of the same symptom domains as its parent instrument with no it em overlap across domains. The vast majority of the internal consisten cy reliabilities for the SA-45's nine scales were in the .70s and .80s across different age and patient status samples. As expected, both ad olescent and adult patient samples generally differed significantly fr om nonpatient control samples, and patients at treatment follow-up dif fered significantly from patients at intake. Moreover, depressed patie nts with and without psychotic features differed significantly on thre e scales. A cluster analysis generally supported the nine-scale struct ure of the inventory, but it failed to consistently support die distin ction between the Paranoid Ideation and Interpersonal Sensitivity scal es. Limitations to the study are noted, but overall, the initial findi ngs support the use of the SA-45 in clinical settings. Suggestions for needed future research are presented.