Development of a computerized adaptive screening tool for overall psychopathology (“p”)

Abstract

A substantial body of work supports the existence of a general psychopathology factor ("p"). Psychometrically, this is important because it implies that there is a psychological phenomenon (overall psychopathology) that can be measured and potentially used in clinical research or treatment. The present study aimed to construct, calibrate, and begin to validate a computerized adaptive (CAT) screener for "p". In a large community sample (N = 4544; age 11-21), we modeled 114 clinical items using a bifactor multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) model and constructed a fully functional (and public) CAT for assessing "p" called the Overall mental illness (OMI) screener. In a random, non-overlapping sample (N = 1019) with extended phenotyping (neuroimaging) from the same community cohort, adaptive versions of the OMI screener (10-, 20-, and 40-item) were simulated and compared to the full 114-item test in their ability to predict demographic characteristics, common mental disorders, and brain parameters. The OMI screener performed almost as well as the full test, despite being only a small fraction of the length. For prediction of 13 mental disorders, the mid-length (20-item) adaptive version showed mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.76, compared to 0.79 for the full version. For prediction of brain parameters, mean absolute standardized relationship was 0.06 for the 20-item adaptive version, compared to 0.07 for the full form. This brief, public tool may facilitate the rapid and accurate measurement of overall psychopathology in large-scale studies and in clinical practice.