The Multidimensional Behavioral Health Screen 1.0: A Translational Tool for Primary Medical Care

Abstract

The Multidimensional Behavioral Health Screen (MBHS) is a brief, 27-item questionnaire designed for screening every patient in primary medical care settings. It measures nine psychopathology constructs that represent the major distinctive core dimensions of the types of behavioral health symptoms most commonly encountered in primary care (anxiety-related, depressive, and attention/cognitive symptoms). The underlying design of the MBHS is based on the major paradigm shift that has occurred in the field of theoretical psychopathology, replacing categorical syndromes, or “disorders,” with hierarchical-dimensional constructs. Existing screening tests such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are based explicitly on the categorical paradigm and thus suffer from the same (numerous) shortcomings as the categorical model itself. The dimensional paradigm supports enhanced measurement precision with very short scales. The goals of the MBHS are threefold: (1) to provide accurate, treatment-relevant behavioral health information to the medical provider; (2) to provide clear referral cut-points; (3) to contribute nine psychometrically sound behavioral health variables to the “healthcare big data cloud” to support future scholarship of discovery. Presented here are the basic psychometric properties of the MBHS, including reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and classification accuracy, as well as implementation considerations.