Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10) and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (Past Week: K-10W)
Introduction
The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10) is a global measure of psychological distress based on questions about anxiety and depressive symptoms in the most recent 30 days. There are 10 items. It is a brief self-report by youth, a widely used and accepted screening instrument, and available in a variety of languages.
Why are we asking youth to complete this questionnaire?
The K-10 shows superior performance as a screener for mental health disorders, especially affective disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety). Youth will often come to a hub due to mental health issues, and we want to be able to measure these and see any changes across time, and share this information with youth. Basically, measuring psychological distress in youth is effective in order to monitor their mental health at a certain point in time and over time, to be able to apply this information to determine the best interventions.
Research on the K-10 has been broad and extensive in both the general population and clinical samples, and for both monitoring mental health and measuring intervention outcomes. Studies have established the reliability and validity of the K-10 across a number of different settings.
Responding to youth asking why they are being asked to complete this:
This questionnaire is designed to screen for worrying and sadness in ten questions. Each question refers to an emotional state (e.g., nervous, depressed) and you choose the answer that best describes you on a five point scale. It helps us get a sense of how you’re currently doing, and then you can decide if there’s something that you think you might want to talk about here.
Clinical questionnaire:
At the hub, when youth are provided the questionnaire on an iPad (or possibly in hard copy form), they receive the following instructions:
Video:
