The Child and Adolescent PsychProfiler (CAPP)

By Shane Langsford, Stephen Houghton and Graham Douglas

Published by : Psychological & Educational Consultancy Services

"Great adjunct for telehealth consultations. You can gather extra client information without using up limited session time."

"Invaluable in my practice in early assessment, particularly where there might be comorbidity. Clients find it non-threatening and it enables them to be engaged early in their care plan. It doesn’t present equity issues and the fear that can arise from psychometric testing.”

"Particularly useful for providing information which may have otherwise been difficult to gather within the limited time of a client session."

"Useful for when having trouble developing rapport with a client or when you don’t feel like you are getting the full clinical picture”.

The PsychProfiler is an Australian designed instrument that simultaneously screens for 20 of the most common psychiatric, psychological and educational disorders. It provides accessible and affordable screening via either web-based or paper-and-pencil forms and allows either automatic online scoring or manual scoring of paper forms in under 2 minutes using the QuickEntry web-based facility. It can be used without restriction or training by a range of mental health and educational practitioners. The latest version, 5 2.0, was released in June 2021.

The PsychProfiler helps identify disorders crucial to formal diagnosis, intervention and prevention of further mental health or educational problems. With its multi-use licence able to be shared by multiple health professionals within the same practice and Quick Start Guide, you can be up and running individual assessments at a cost as low as $5 each in no time at all. You simply send a link to the client by email allowing them to complete the assessment in their own time via computer or mobile device. Client screening forms (Self and Observer) each take 15-25 minutes to complete. A confidential PDF scoring report is returned to your email inbox with the results hidden from the client. The report includes the client’s coded data for all disorders, an indication of whether the positive screen cut-off for each disorder was met, identification of which specific items led to the positive screen cut-off being met, a Reliability Index ranging from –1 (absolute unreliability) to +1 (absolute reliability), and report interpretation guidelines.

[Click here for a PDF sample Report]

The PsychProfiler was developed over 15 years and has been validated against a large mainstream and clinical sample. (n = 16000+) It is available in two forms — adults and those aged 2-18. Oriented to the DSM-5-TR, it is a screening instrument, not a diagnostic tool, so allows unrestricted use and can even be self-administered. It has been the highest-selling such Australian screening instrument since 2004 and is used by a range of mental health professionals including psychologists, GPs, paediatricians, psychiatrists, counsellors, OTs, mental health nurses, life coaches and HR managers throughout Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. Users consistently report that the PsychProfiler makes them a better practitioner. Many use it for every client they see, particularly prior to the first session.

The PsychProfiler screens for psychiatric/psychological/educational disorders including:

• anxiety disorders
• attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• autism spectrum disorder
• bipolar and related disorders
• communication disorders
• depressive disorders
• disruptive impulse-control & conduct disorders
• feeding and eating disorders
• obsessive-compulsive and related disorders
• personality disorders
• schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders
• specific learning disorders
• trauma and stressor-related disorders.

The advantages of the Psychprofiler include:

• providing objective and reliable data from multiple observers using recognised DSM criteria
• optimising the efficiency of clinical interviewing
• assisting accurate differential diagnosis of disorders with similar symptomology
• providing more accurate investigation of the presence of comorbidity in disorders
• aiding the early identification of disorders
• identifying more covert disorders that often remain unnoticed and untreated
• aiding with the formulation of treatment programmes by identifying a large number of individual behaviours
• evaluating the effectiveness of intervention via pre and post screening.

The Child and Adolescent PsychProfiler kit includes: 1 x Online Software Licence (allows 150 administrations/uses), 1x Manual, 10 x paper Self-report forms, 10 x paper Parent report forms, 10 x Teacher report forms.