Mental Health Screening Tools

Mental health screening tools are designed for use by clinicians who are not mental health
specialists. They detect the likely presence of mental health symptoms that are often seen
within specialist AOD treatment services. They are not designed to provide a diagnostic
assessments nor do they yield information about specific disorders.

K10 (Kessler Psychological Distress Scale)

The K10 is a simple measure of psychological distress and involves 10 questions about
emotional states relevant to anxiety and depression. Each item is scored from 1 (none of the
time) to 5 (all of the time), yielding a minimum score of 10 and a maximum score of 50.

Interpretation of Scores
K10
Score

Likelihood of having a mental disorder

(psychological distress)

10 - 19
20 - 24
25 - 29
30 - 50

Likely to be well
Likely to have a mild disorder
Likely to have a moderate disorder
Likely to have a severe disorder

Psycheck Screening Tool

The Psycheck Screening Tool has three sections:

A General Mental Health Screen, including history of treatment

A Suicide/Self-Harm Risk Assessment
A Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ) that assesses current symptoms

The SRQ contains 20 questions related to common symptoms of depression, anxiety and
somatic complaints (such as sleep problems, headaches and digestive problems). Each
question requires either a Yes or No answer. The client is then asked to look at the Yes
answers and indicate whether they have experienced that particular symptom when they were
not using alcohol or other drugs. Each subsequent Yes answer receives a score of one and
these scores are tallied to yield a SRQ score.
File in SEADS New Staff Orientation Folder
Correct as of 09/12/09

Interpretation of Scores
SRQ Score

Interpretation

No symptoms of depression, anxiety and/or

somatic complaints indicated at this time
Some symptoms of depression, anxiety
and/or somatic complaints indicated at this
time
Considerable symptoms of depression,
anxiety and/or somatic complaints
indicated at this time

1-4
5 or above

Modified Mini Screen (MMS)

The Modified Mini Screen is a 22 item questionnaire that may be administered by a clinician
in about 15 minutes. Questions relate to signs of distress that may be attributed to a
diagnosable psychiatric disorder. The screen is divided into 3 sections to capture the three
major categories of mental illness as follows:

Section A Mood Disorders

Section B Anxiety Disorders
Section C Psychotic Disorders

Scoring of the MMS is straightforward and additiveeach YES in the screen counts as 1.
The clinician adds all the positive responses for a total score which ranges from 1 to 22.

Interpretation of Scores
MMS
Score
1-4
5-8
9 - 22

Interpretation
Low likelihood of mental illness
Moderate likelihood of mental illness
High likelihood of mental illness

File in SEADS New Staff Orientation Folder

Correct as of 09/12/09