College student mental health: An evaluation of the DSM-5 self-rated Level 1 cross-cutting symptom measure

• Published in: Psychological assessment Vol. 30; no. 10; p. 1382
• Main Authors: Bravo, Adrian J, Villarosa-Hurlocker, Margo C, Pearson, Matthew R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.10.2018
• Subjects: Adolescent; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Disorders - diagnosis; Mental Health; Psychometrics; Reproducibility of Results; Students - psychology; United States; Universities; Young Adult; United States
• ISSN: 1939-134X
• DOI: 10.1037/pas0000628

The Self-Rated Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure was developed to aid in clinical decision-making for clients seeking psychiatric services and to facilitate empirical investigation of the dimensional nature of mental health issues. Preliminary evidence supports its utility with clinical samples. However, the brief, yet comprehensive structure of the Level 1 measure may benefit a high-risk population that is less likely to seek treatment. College students have high rates of hazardous substance use and co-occurring mental health symptoms, yet rarely seek treatment. Therefore, the current study evaluated the psychometric properties (i.e., construct and criterion-related validity) of the Level 1 measure with a large, diverse sample of non-treatment-seeking college/university students. Data from 7,217 college students recruited from 10 universities in 10 different states across the United States evidenced psychometric validation of the Level 1 measure. Specifically, we found acceptable internal consistency across multi-item domains and moderate to strong correlations among domains (internal validity). Further, several domains were positively associated with longer, validated measures of the same mental health construct and had similar strengths of associations with substance use outcomes compared to longer measures of the same construct (convergent validity). Finally, all domains were negatively associated with self-esteem and positively associated with other theoretically relevant constructs, such as posttraumatic stress (criterion-related validity). Taken together, the Level 1 measure appears to be a viable tool for evaluating psychopathology in college students. Several opportunities for clinical application and empirical investigation of the Level 1 measure are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).