Behavioral Health screening tools

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network encourage the use of validated behavioral health screening instruments to identify members with undiagnosed disorders, monitor the severity of their ongoing symptoms and assess treatment outcomes. They support quality in clinical practice by making available access to the following instruments:

Screening Tool Purpose Additional Information
Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) (tool and scoring information) (PDF) A ten-item questionnaire that identifies hazardous and harmful alcohol use as well as possible dependence Pages are excerpted from the Alcohol Use and Disorders Identification Test, Guidelines for Use in Primary Care, Second Edition (PDF), published by the World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence. This manual, Brief Intervention for Hazardous and Harmful Drinking (PDF), is to help primary health care to deal with persons whose alcohol consumption has become hazardous or harmful to their health.

© World Health Organization 2001
Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (PDF) 18 clinical questions to assess severity of consolidated symptoms The BPRS is a rating scale which a clinician or researcher may use to measure psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis and unusual behavior. The scale is one of the oldest, most widely used scales to measure psychotic symptoms. It should be administered by a clinician who is knowledgeable concerning each of the symptom domains, and severe mental health disorders. It is particularly useful in gauging the efficacy of treatment in patients who have moderate to severe psychoses.
MAST (Michigan Alcohol Screening Test) (PDF) 25-item questionnaire to provide a rapid and effective screening for lifetime alcohol-related problems and alcoholism The MAST is one of the oldest and most utilized measures for assessing alcohol use and abuse in adults and adolescents. Developed by Melvin L. Selzer, the test was first published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1971.
PHQ-9 (tool and scoring) (PDF) A questionnaire used to screen for depression The PHQ-9 is adapted from PRIME MD TODAY, developed by Drs. Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B.W. Williams, Kurt Kroenke and colleagues, with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc.

Use of the PHQ-9 may only be made in accordance with the Terms of Use available at http://www.pfizer.com. Copyright ©1999 Pfizer Inc. All rights reserved. PRIME MD TODAY is a trademark of Pfizer Inc.