Self-Report Instruments for Clinical Monitoring of Psychosis Risk States.

OBJECTIVE: Practice guidelines emphasize frequent clinical monitoring of patients at high risk for psychosis. No brief instrument assessing attenuated psychotic symptoms has been validated for this purpose. This study examined use of three self-report questionnaires, which were developed as psychosis risk screeners, for monitoring symptom severity in a naturalistic clinical sample of 54 adolescents.

METHODS: Self-report measures (Prime Screen-Revised, Prodromal Questionnaire-Brief Version [PQ-B], and Youth Psychosis At-Risk Questionnaire-Brief) and clinician assessments (Structured Interview for Psychosis Risk Syndromes) were administered to participants at baseline and six months.

RESULTS: Changes in self-report scores were moderately correlated with changes in clinician ratings. The PQ-B demonstrated slightly better agreement with changes in clinician ratings than the other two measures.

CONCLUSIONS: Questionnaires developed as psychosis risk screeners could be used for symptom monitoring. Further validation of tools to monitor attenuated symptoms will be a valuable step toward developing an evidence-based approach for treating high-risk youths.