Definition
Symptoms scales are psychometric instruments aimed at assessing the frequency or severity of any type of symptom associated with a mental or physical health condition. Development of symptom scales requires the same type of rigor as any other self-report instrument requires, including tests of internal reliability and test-retest reliability and face, concurrent, construct and predictive validity.Questions on such scales can be asked in relation to a specific time frame (e.g., the present moment, the past week) and in relation to certain severity levels. For example, in the assessment of pain symptoms, patients may be asked to rate their level of average and worse pain in a given time frame. Finally, some scales also ask the extent to which certain symptoms interfere with one’s daily functioning, as is often done in the domain of quality of life or pain. One of the earliest developed psychological symptoms scale is the symptom check list 90 (SCL-90) which was designed to...
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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, New York
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Gidron, Y. (2013). Symptoms Scale. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1524
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1524
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