Impairment in the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology

The purpose of this article was to define and describe impairment from the perspective of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP). This work is intended to establish a foundation for the development of a system for assessing impairment to complement HiTOP measures of psychopathology. We define impairment as the direct or indirect impact of psychopathology that is not itself part of psychopathology, involving (a) difficulty achieving important and reasonable personal goals and/or (b) direct or indirect interference with the goals of others. We articulate seven specific assessment features of a HiTOP-optimal impairment measurement approach and, having found no existing measures with all seven features in a review of the literature, sketch a prototype approach using a case example and outline a plan for generating a suite of tools for assessing impairment from a HiTOP perspective. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).