Use of a two‐phase process to identify possible cases of mental ill health in the UK military

This study assesses the sensitivity and specificity of abridged instruments (used in the first phase) compared to the full instruments (the second phase), and whether false negative cases resulting from the use of abridged tests were detected by another test, among a UK military screening sample. Data from a group of UK Armed Forces personnel (n = 1464) who had completed full questionnaires assessing symptoms of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (PTSD Checklist – Civilian Version, PCL‐C) and alcohol misuse (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, AUDIT) were used. An abridged version of the PCL‐C performed well in discriminating potential PTSD cases (as measured by the full instrument); AUDIT showed less discriminatory power, particularly due to poor specificity. Many cases missed by one abridged test would have been detected by an alternative test. Thus two‐phase screening designs reduce the resource burden of a project without substantial loss of sensitivity for PTSD, but are less effective in discriminating potential cases of alcohol misuse. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Source: International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Original Article Source Type: research