Holden Psychological Screening Inventory

The Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI, published by Multi-Health Systems, http://www.mhs.com) is a brief screening instrument designed with contemporary health care demands such as speed and ease of use in mind. It was developed by Ronald R. Holden in response to growing practical concerns involved with other, much larger instruments that require a great deal of time to administer. The HPSI consists of 36 self-report items, each on a 5-point scale; takes approximately 7 minutes to administer; and measures three broad dimensions of psychopathology: psychiatric symptomatology, social symptomatology, and depression. The scales have 12 items each and were developed from factor analysis of 11 of the 12 scales of the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI), which in turn were constructed from the scales of the Differential Personality Inventory, although each test makes use of original items.

The psychiatric symptomatology scale is associated with the BPI scales of hypochondriasis, anxiety, thinking disorder, persecutory ideas, and deviation. This scale can be thought of as measuring general maladjustment and includes items asking about illness, pain, simple coordination (such as standing or walking), tension, and panic. The social symptomatology scale draws from the BPI scales of alienation, interpersonal problems, impulse expression, persecutory ideas, and deviation. It measures externalizing traits and includes items regarding alcohol, drugs, illegal activity, authority, and response to others. The depression scale is related to the BPI scales of depression, social introversion, and self-depreciation. The HPSI depression scale measures general self-esteem and mood. It includes items about life satisfaction, social activity, and feelings of self-worth and ability. The three scale scores are added to yield a total psychopathology score that can then be used as a validity scale, with extremely high or low scores indicating potentially invalid responses. All four of the HPSI scales can be converted to T scores (standard scores with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10) or percentiles with reference to normative data.

The HPSI should not be given to children under the age of 14, and caution is recommended with physically disabled or acutely psychotic individuals. Normative data is available for general adult, psychiatric adult, male adult psychiatric offender, high school, and university populations. The test does not require extraordinary skill to administer or score and is amenable to group administration. The HPSI is ideal for identifying people who may require further diagnostic testing or attention as well as monitoring clinical change or progress in the domains measured. It has also been used in the evaluation of treatment programs.