Comparing Computerized Adaptive Testing-Mental Health (CAT-MH) and Behavioral Health Measure-20 (BHM-20) screening...

Area of Science:

• Mental Health
• Psychometrics
• Higher Education

Background:

• Mental health screening tools are crucial for connecting students to care.
• Two common tools, the BHM-20 and CAT-MH, are used in college settings.
• Understanding their comparative performance is essential for effective student mental health services.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the agreement between the BHM-20 and CAT-MH mental health screening tools.
• To evaluate concordance across four domains: suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, and mania.
• To examine agreement within demographic subgroups of undergraduate and graduate students.

Main Methods:

• Students completed the CAT-MH; those referred to counseling also completed the BHM-20.
• Intraclass correlations (ICCs) were used to analyze concordance.
• Analysis included overall agreement and agreement across demographic subgroups.

Main Results:

• Poor agreement was found between the BHM-20 and CAT-MH in most assessed domains.
• Mania screening showed significantly worse agreement than other domains.
• Moderate reliability was observed for anxiety overall, but not consistently across all demographic subgroups.

Conclusions:

• The BHM-20 and CAT-MH demonstrate limited agreement in college student populations.
• The BHM-20 may be more suitable for follow-up assessments, while the CAT-MH is better for initial, comprehensive evaluations.
• Clinicians should be aware of potential discrepancies in symptom severity levels between the tools, which may impact treatment planning and evaluation.