Development of a Social Skills Assessment Screening Scale for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Settings: A Pilot Study.
BACKGROUND
Deficits in social skills may present in a range of psychiatric disorders, particularly in the more serious and persistent conditions, and have an influence on functioning across various domains.


OBJECTIVE
This pilot study aimed at developing a brief measure, for structured evaluation and screening for social skills deficits, which can be easily integrated into routine clinical practice.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 380 inpatients and their accompanying caregivers, referred to Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services at a tertiary care government psychiatric hospital.


METHODS
The evaluation included an Inpatient intake Proforma and the 20-item Social Skills Assessment Screening Scale (SSASS). Disability was assessed using the Indian Disability Evaluation and Assessment Scale (IDEAS) for a subset of 94 inpatients.


METHODS
The analysis included means and standard deviations, frequency and percentages, Cronbach's alpha to assess internal consistency,t-tests to assess differences in social skills deficits between select subgroups, and correlation between SSASS and IDEAS scores.


RESULTS
The results indicated the profile of social skills deficits assessed among the inpatients with varied psychiatric diagnoses. The "psychosis" group exhibited significantly higher deficits than the "mood disorder" group. Results indicated high internal consistency of the SSASS and adequate criterion validity demonstrated by correlations with select IDEAS domains. Modifications were made to the SSASS following the pilot study.


CONCLUSIONS
The SSASS has potential value as a measure for screening and individualised intervention plans for social skills training in mental health and rehabilitation settings. The implications for future work on the psychometric properties and clinical applications are discussed.
Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Poornima
P
Bhola
Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Chethan
C
Basavarajappa
Art Therapy Program, College of Education, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Deepti
D
Guruprasad
Department of Clinical Psychology, Dharwad Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka, India.
Gayatri
G
Hegde
Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Fatema
F
Khanam
Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Jagadisha
J
Thirthalli
Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Santosh K
SK
Chaturvedi
Criterion validity; psychiatric rehabilitation; screening; social skills assessment