Non-intrusive on clinician's and client's time.Qpass can be easily administered in mental health settings without taking much time to administer and score. Outpatient mental health patients can be scheduled to arrive about 10 minutes early to complete Qpass in a therapist’s waiting room before a session begins. Outpatients may also take Qpass at home and complete it between visits with instructions to set aside time for completing the questionnaire during a set time without interruption. Either way, Qpass offers counselors and psychotherapists a versatile tool that performs the following work:

Diagnosis

A “symptom catcher.” A thorough diagnostic assessment requires the collection of a vast amount of symptom data. However, many clinical interviews are too limited in time for a comprehensive evaluation. Moreover, mental health patients may not report their symptoms unless they are directly asked. Qpass rapidly collects data on over 100 symptoms of psychopathology, some of which could be missed in a clinical interview. For example, the examinee’s responses to items 85 (“Overeating”) and 96 (“Purging food”) may help identify an eating disorder.

Assisting in making DSM diagnosis. Qpass items are highly consistent with the criteria of many mental disorders described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR, American Psychiatric Association, 2000). For example, prolonged and extreme sadness, (i.e., dysphoria) is pertinent to the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder. Also, the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for the anxiety disorders rely heavily upon clinical assessment of fear as subjectively experienced by the patient. Symptoms of prolonged or severe anger can be found in the DSM-IV TR diagnostic criteria for Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Sexual Sadism, Borderline Personality Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Refining clinical judgment. Therapists who depend on their “clinical intuition” without the support of self-reported empirical data are highly vulnerable to making errors in clinical judgment, even if the therapist is very experienced. For both novice and seasoned therapists, Qpass results can be helpful in refining clinical judgment.

How Qpass Maximizes the Impact of the Therapy Hour

Qpass response data at the beginning of the session helps maximize the therapy hour by offering the therapists with the following:

More time for actual therapy during the therapy hour. Qpass greatly reduces the time it takes for the clinician to assess the patient’s psychological functioning, virtually eliminating the need to ask the client questions on his or her emotional functioning. Less time in assessment, translates into more time for actual therapy.

A sweeping overview of 105 symptoms. Qpass provides therapists the opportunity to quickly scan the client’s ratings of 105 symptoms and zero in on those items rated as severe, as well as certain “red flag items” such as recent substance abuse and suicidal thinking.

Important clinical data for structuring the session. Qpass data, presented to the clinician at the beginning of the psychotherapy session, helps the clinician structure the session according to symptom severity and scores on the scales for depression, anxiety, and anger.

Tracking Progress

Indications of improvement in therapy are often based on measurably reduced symptoms of emotional distress (Sperry, Brill, Howard, & Grissom, 1996; Stout, 1997). Qpass is designed for repeated administration to the same patient; hence, Qpass is ideally suited to track progress in counseling and psychotherapy.

Outcome Evaluation / Aftercare

Comparing Qpass results at the time of discharge with Qpass results at the time of admission provides a convenient outcome measure that can be used for evaluating the effectiveness of mental health services. As part of an aftercare plan, Qpass can be administered at periodic intervals after discharge, such as every 3-6 months. After reviewing Qpass results, the therapist can make appropriate recommendations, such as returning to therapy.

Clinical Documentation

Symptom data is often required to support medical necessity of treatment. Qpass results can be easily communicated to the client’s managed care company in order to support your diagnosis and treatment plan.

Legal Documentation

In the event of litigation on a case, presenting documented symptom data on Qpass can be highly valuable when asked by the court for evidence in support of diagnostic and treatment decisions.

Other Uses in Mental Health Settings

Qpass also has the following uses in mental health settings:

Provides data for research. Valuable opportunities for collecting research data are wasted when mental health professionals do not routinely collect self-reported symptom data. For example, Qpass data can be used to for studying the effectiveness of a new treatment intervention, or the overall effectiveness of a clinic or institution.

Clinical supervision. A clinical supervisor who has no data on client symptoms must depend upon the supervisee to provide an accurate description of the client’s mental health. However, supervisees are often new therapists who are still in the process of developing their clinical assessment skills. Qpass provides clinical supervisors immediate access to ratings of the client’s subjective distress, offering vitally important information to the supervisor (such as suicidal ideation) that supervisees can either miss or minimize.

Helps prioritize therapist’s time. Having Qpass data on more than one client can provide therapists with important information that can be used in scheduling clients according to severity of distress.

Burnout prevention and monitoring. Mental health care work is very stressful, and many therapists tend to be so attuned to others’ psychological well being that they lose track of their own. Qpass, taken periodically by the therapist, is an excellent tool in guarding one’s own mental health in a highly demanding profession.