Suicide is a leading cause of morbidity, yet a significant challenge to receiving adequate support is an unwillingness to disclose mental health issues. The current study explores reasons for nondisclosure among emergency personnel, a population at risk of developing mental health problems. Twenty-nine police, ambulance, and fire and rescue agencies from around Australia participated in a mental health

The Standardized Assessment of Severity of Personality Disorder (SASPD) is a 9-item self-report screening instrument and was developed to assess personality disorder (PD) severity according to the initial proposal of ICD-11. Our aim was to investigate the psychometric properties of the German version of the SASPD in nonclinical and clinical samples. A total of 1,991 participants (N = 888 from nonclinical

Confusion exists about the construct of perfectionism, considered to consist of perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC). Recent theory suggests that pursuit of excellence is related to PS but differentiated by having a more positive impact. To test this hypothesis, we used a meta-analytic analysis to examine the associations between different measures of perfectionism and academic

The traditional background hypothesis (TBH) is a long-standing belief associated with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) L scale; a validity scale, which appears on every version of the family of MMPI instruments including the soon-to-be released MMPI-3. The L scale was originally designed to assess whether test respondents presented themselves in an unrealistically favorable light

Proper assessment and diagnosis of eating disorders (EDs) are critical to determine to whom prevention and treatment efforts should be targeted, the extent to which treatment is working, and when an individual has recovered. Although existing ED diagnostic interviews have numerous strengths, they also have certain limitations, including poor internal consistency, low discriminant validity, and poor

The ability to decenter from internal experiences is important for mental health. Consequently, improving decentering is a common therapeutic target, particularly for mindfulness-based interventions. However, extant decentering measures are limited as they fail to directly assess all 3 metacognitive processes recently theorized to subserve decentering. We thus conducted 4 studies to develop and test

Schools are increasingly concerned with the well-being of the whole child - likely, more so since the COVID-19 pandemic - and goals here were to document the psychometric properties of a brief new measure of adolescent mental health, the Well-Being Index (WBI). The measure assesses 4 symptom areas, 2 each of internalizing and externalizing symptoms-Depression, Anxiety, Rule-Breaking, and Substance

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is an established transdiagnostic risk factor for emotional disorders. It is defined as the fear of anxiety sensations that arises from beliefs that those sensations can have harmful consequences on cognitive, physical, and social functioning. Thus, AS is usually considered a multidimensional construct comprised of the following dimensions: Cognitive, Physical, and Social concerns

Although the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey, & Fisher, 2001) is the most popular assessment for childhood temperament, its psychometric qualities have yet to be examined using Item Response Theory (IRT) methods. These methods highlight in detail the specific contributions of individual items for measuring different facets of temperament. Importantly, with 16 scales

Self-criticism is significantly associated with a variety of mental health difficulties affecting vulnerability, presentation, progress, and recovery. In contrast, self-reassurance is associated with good mental health, psychological well-being, and beneficial physiological processes. The 22-item Forms of Self-Criticizing/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS) is an internationally used self-report

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 Section III alternative model of personality disorder (AMPD) was developed to rectify some of the failings of the DSM-IV personality disorders, including a lack of compelling discriminant validity. The primary purpose of the current study was to provide a direct comparison of DSM-IV with DSM-5 Section III AMPD with respect to discriminant

The American Psychiatric Association supported the development of several instruments to assess personality pathology according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5) Section III. These instruments include self- and informant report forms as well as clinician-rated measures of personality traits and impairment. To date, the psychometric properties of the DSM-5

Psychometric critiques of cross-cultural research emphasize testing whether instruments measure the same construct across cultural groups. We tested for measurement invariance (by race/ethnicity) of instruments used to evaluate the relationship between alcohol and tobacco use with perceived discrimination and socioeconomic status (SES). Tests of psychometric equivalence across race/ethnicity focused

Although anomalous perceptual experiences are common in healthy older adults, they remain poorly characterized. In particular, it is unclear whether the phenomenology of these experiences differs between healthy older and younger adults. The current study examined similarities and differences in the factor structure of the Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale (CAPS) in healthy, community-dwelling older

Despite a few hypothesized associations between revenge and suicide in the suicide literature, the potential of revenge as a multidimensional construct related to suicide has remained unexplored. Using data from undergraduate samples across 2 studies, we examined support for the psychometric properties and nomological network of scores on the Multidimensional Revenge Attitudes Inventory-21 (MRAI-21)

Emerging adulthood is characterized by a prolonged transition from adolescence into adult roles and responsibilities. During this time, changes across multiple life domains can elicit stress, and while the impact of this has received substantial attention, measurement across different domains has been inconsistent. The ability to assess both the global stress experience and specific stressor domains

Trait self-control is important for well-being and mental and physical health. Most extant measures of self-control are limited in that they do not account for the multidimensionality and specificity of the trait. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a multidimensional and hierarchical scale of self-control in a full and a short version. The development of the Multidimensional Self-Control

Traditionally, executive function (EF) tasks have been scored using either accuracy or reaction time (RT) metrics. The current study, which includes 1,015 first-grade children from the Family Life Project, demonstrates a new scoring approach for the Hearts and Flowers (HF) task that uses both item-level accuracy and RT data to estimate latent EF ability. Our primary aim was to compare scores derived

Many children in need do not receive the psychoeducational evaluation services they need, with an estimated 15% of all students struggling with attentional or learning difficulties that are unassessed, and thus unaddressed, during "normal" times. Such evaluations have largely halted during the COVID-19 crisis, with questionable psychometrics of usable measures and clinicians largely unprepared to administer

Psychological flexibility (PF), defined as the ability to pursue valued life aims despite the presence of distress, is a fundamental contributor to health (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Existing measures of PF have failed to consider the valued goals that give context for why people are willing to manage distress. Using 4 independent samples and 3 follow-up samples, we examined the role of PF in well-being

Colleges and universities are increasingly concerned about respect for diversity and tolerance of individual differences on their campuses. Nevertheless, no comprehensive measure of peer victimization has been developed and validated for use with college student populations. The Peer Victimization in College Survey (PVIC) is the first such measure. Study 1 (N = 733) reports how PVIC items were empirically

The Behavioral Assessment System for Children, 3rd edition (BASC-3) is a commonly used clinical assessment to evaluate a variety of behavioral and emotional concerns in children and adolescents. The focus of the current study is on the problematic interpretation of the F Index of the BASC-3 self-report measure for adolescents (SRP-A) suffering from depressive disorders. In this study, we used data

Developmental epidemiological work shows that rates of depression as assessed by diagnostic interviews increase from childhood through early adulthood. It could be assumed that the trajectory of depression as assessed by self-report questionnaire measures would be characterized by a similar pattern. We aimed to evaluate this assumption and more clearly establish the longitudinal trajectory of depression

The Personality Inventory for ICD-11 (PiCD) was recently developed to assess the ICD-11 model of personality disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the PiCD using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and the Computerized Adaptive Test of Personality Disorders Static Form (CAT-PD-SF). We administered these tests

The dot-probe task is a widely used experimental paradigm that evaluates attention biases within anxiety disorders. Considerable research has focused on improving the reliability of dot-probe scores because the task's original attention bias index has shown very low test-retest reliability. The current study serves as a replication and extension of Price et al. (2015), who systematically examined the

Pain-related anxiety, defined as fear of pain and pain-related sensations, is a transdiagnostic individual difference factor associated with pain-related problems, addictive disorders, and physical impairment among nonclinical and clinical populations. Pain-related anxiety is most commonly measured using the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale-20 (PASS-20). It was hypothesized that the data would provide evidence

Research studies suggest racial/ethnic differences in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis and symptom severity. Few studies to date, however, have examined the extent to which these findings are due to differences in measurement properties of existing PTSD scales. This study examined measurement equivalence across race/ethnicity in the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) by testing

This study examined the effect of increasing material-specific verbal and visual memory impairment severity on Rey 15-Item Test (RFIT) and RFIT/Recognition Trial performance. Data from 146 clinically referred patients (109 valid/37 invalid) who completed the RFIT, Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised, and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test were analyzed. Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test/BVMT memory

Poor dyadic adjustment in marital or similar relationships is common among patients seeking individual cognitive therapy (CT) for major depressive disorder (MDD). Here we examined the psychometric properties of the marital adjustment subscale (MAS) of the Social Adjustment Scale-Self-report (SAS-SR; Weissman & Bothwell, 1976). Among married or cohabiting patients receiving individual CT for recurrent

Parent reports of child temperament, especially those of mothers', are frequently used in research and clinical practice, but there are concerns that maternal characteristics, including a history of psychopathology, might bias reports on these measures. However, whether maternal reports of youth temperament show structural differences based on mothers' psychiatric history is unclear. We therefore conducted

Hyperactivity is a core ADHD symptom that has been both positively and negatively associated with cognition and functional outcomes. The reason for these conflicting findings is unclear but may relate to subjective assessments that conflate excess physical movement (hyperactivity) with verbally intrusive/impulsive behaviors. The current study adopted a model-driven, rational-empirical approach to distinguish

In epidemiology and psychiatry research, the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) is commonly used to assess offspring's perception on maternal and paternal behavior during childhood. We tested the 2- versus 3-factor structure of the 16-item version and assessed measurement invariance across sex and across lifetime depressed, anxious, comorbid affected, and healthy participants. Subsequently, we investigated

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a set of longitudinal methods that researchers can use to understand complex processes (e.g., health, behavior, emotion) in "high resolution." Although technology has made EMA data collection easier, concerns remain about the consistency and quality of data collected from participants who are enrolled and followed online. In this study, we used EMA data from

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is typically assessed using either single-item questionnaires or checklists of common behaviors, but preliminary research suggests that checklists produce higher lifetime prevalence rates. In 2 preregistered studies (combined n = 1,364), we tested whether memory cueing afforded by behavioral checklists accounts for this discrepancy. Participants reported their lifetime

Emotional congruence with children is central in understanding why some adults pursue sexual contact with children. Although self-report scales have been developed to assess for emotional congruence with children, these scales have equivocal latent structure and less than desirable performance in validation research. Further, these scales were not developed to assess emotional congruence with children

Mutually responsive orientation (MRO) reflects a system of reciprocity between members of a dyad (Kochanska, 2002), and MRO observed in parent-child relationships is a robust predictor of child development (Kim, Boldt, & Kochanska, 2015; Kim & Kochanska, 2012; Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007; Kochanska, Forman, Aksan, & Dunbar, 2005). The goal of the present study was to adapt an observational coding

Research on emotion regulation (ER) strategies has often relied on trait self-report measures, where individuals retrospectively report their tendency to engage in a specific strategy. Although this method is convenient and useful in many clinical and research settings, it is subject to a number of response and memory biases and may not accurately reflect ER as it is naturalistically employed in daily

Taxometric research on substance use problems has yielded inconsistent results, with some studies yielding evidence of a taxonic (categorical) latent structure and other studies yielding dimensional findings. The 2 previous studies that specifically examined cannabis misuse supported a dimensional latent structure. However, given the inconsistent findings for other substance use disorders and the changing

To advance the research examining the sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) construct, a key priority has been to develop assessment tools that are reliable and valid. The current study builds upon existing work by conducting the most thorough psychometric evaluation to date of the teacher-reported Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI) SCT and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder inattention

Emerging evidence shows that the construct validity of commonly used chronic stress measures is questionable. Item response theory was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Screening Scale of Chronic Stress (SSCS). Using multidimensional item response modeling of data from two population-based samples (N₁

Researchers are increasingly using objective methods to study constructs related to suicidal thoughts and behavior (STB; e.g., self-identification with suicide), such as via behavioral tasks and brain imaging. Although promising, such approaches often are limited by the use of overly general stimuli (e.g., images, words) to represent constructs under study (e.g., suicide attempt). Overly general stimuli

The unique objectives of the current investigation were: (a) to assess the fit of a multiinformant 2-factor measurement model of friendship quality in a clinical sample of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (b) to use a multiple indicators multiple causes approach to evaluate whether comorbid externalizing and internalizing disorders incrementally predict levels of positive

Tools for assessing an individual's readiness to change nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) are limited. The Transtheoretical model of change (TTM) has been useful in predicting behavior change and guiding interventions for a variety of health behaviors including eating disorders, substance use disorders, and exercise. The aim of the current study was to examine the validity of test score interpretations

This article describes (a) the origins of, (b) rationale underlying, and (c) preliminary validity evidence for, a new ability measure of emotional understanding (EU), a major component of emotional intelligence. A novel conceptual approach-the empathic agent paradigm (EAP)-provided the theoretical foundation. The EAP results in a veridical, logically defensible scoring key, a major development for

The Bicultural Identity Integration Scale (BIIS-2) and the Multicultural Identity Styles Scale (MISS) were designed to assess different aspects of bicultural identity. The BIIS-2 captures characteristics of a bicultural identity in the domains of affect (harmony vs. conflict) and cognition (blendedness vs. compartmentalization). The MISS measures 2 distinct strategies (hybrid and alternating identity

To enhance and standardize the assessment of suicidal self-directed violence (SDV) in military populations, the Military Suicide Research Consortium developed the Common Data Elements (CDEs). Previous research supported the CDEs as assessing a higher-order factor of suicidal SDV in military populations. The present study had two aims: 1) confirm the bifactor structure of the CDEs in a high-risk sample

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes task (RMET; Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001) is commonly used to assess theory of mind abilities in adults. In the task, participants pair one of four mental state descriptors with a picture of the eye region of a face. The items have varying emotional valence, and nearly 100 studies have examined whether performance on this task varies with item

The testing of measurement invariance (MI) across different cultural backgrounds for short screeners of mental health has been mostly neglected. Therefore, we examined MI in the most common mental health screeners worldwide used to assess the psychological indicators of health among migrants and refugees: the Short-Form-12 Health Survey (SF-12) for health-related quality of life and the Patient Health

The Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (SITBI) is a widely used measure of the presence, frequency, and characteristics of suicide and self-harming thoughts and behaviors. In response to advances in the conceptualization of these outcomes, and the potential for online data collection, we created a revised version of the SITBI (SITBI-R) and tested its psychometric properties via in-person

Indigenous people and the courts have emphasized that it is important to examine whether scores from violence risk assessment tools are valid and appropriate for Indigenous youth. However, studies are scarce. Therefore, we examined the predictive validity of youth probation officers' Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) ratings for 744 Canadian youth, including 299 Indigenous youth

The study of psychopathic traits in youth is in its nascent stages and the nature and the structure of these traits is still poorly understood. In one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of the construct validity of the widely used Antisocial Processing Screening Device (APSD), we used two independent samples of youth, one community (N = 2203) and one clinic-referred (N = 534), ages 4 to 19

In light of increasing rates of overweight and obesity worldwide, there is a critical need for accurate self-report measures of disinhibited and restrained eating behaviors across the weight spectrum. Item response theory was used to determine whether differences in disinhibited and restrained eating between healthy weight and overweight or obese individuals were due to item bias (i.e., differential

The Adult Separation Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (ASA-27) is the most widely used self-report assessment of adult separation anxiety (ASA). Despite its widespread use, relatively little is known about its psychometric properties, specifically whether it is unidimensional, its degree of precision (or information) across latent levels of ASA, the functioning of individual items in general and of DSM-derived

A dynamic risk factor is a variable that can change across time, and as it changes, there is a corresponding change in the likelihood of the outcome. In corrections, there is evidence for dynamic risk factors when relatively more proximal reassessments enhance predictive validity for recidivism. In this article, we tested the proximity hypothesis with longitudinal, multiple-reassessment data gathered

Judgments about a client's behavior problems and treatment goals, and the factors that influence them, are elements of most clinical case formulations (CCFs). These judgments are designed to guide clinicians' selection of the most effective intervention foci. Despite their importance, CCFs have undergone infrequent psychometric evaluations. We describe a model to promote and facilitate the psychometric

Ethnic-racial discrimination experiences, ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development, and attitudes toward other ethnic-racial group contact all make important contributions to individuals' health and well-being. Absent from the literature is systematic examination of whether these constructs may be measured equivalently for adolescents from different ethnic-racial groups living in different contexts

When examining emotions and emotion regulation, we discriminate between emotion experience and emotion expressivity. Research shows that the two are modestly related. The Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ) was designed to assess positive and negative expressivity, as well as the intensity of the expressive behavior. The current article reports on 2 studies that examined the reliability and validity

An increasing number of studies are applying multilevel modeling (MLM) to daily diary assessments of emotional and cognitive reactivity (ER and CR). Despite their generation of promising results, these methods have yet to be validated. The current study, consisting of 449 participants from over 90 different colleges and universities, had 2 goals: (a) to assess the convergent validity of these methods

Intimate partner aggression (IPA) is a complex construct composed of the means and the motivations by which a person harms his or her intimate partner. Existing measures only assess forms of IPA perpetration while neglecting to measure the motivations for aggressing. The present study sought to fill this lacuna by adapting and validating an existing measure of the forms and functions of adolescent

This study describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Eating for Muscularity Scale (EMS), a measure of muscularity-oriented disordered eating (MDE) attitudes and behaviors. We conducted a literature review to define the construct of MDE and relevant subdomains. This review informed a large pool of items addressing these subdomains, which were then reduced based on feedback