At NovoPsych we’ve added some scales that allow you to assess the psychological aspects of health, the body, and pain-related issues. These assessments help clinicians discern psychological factors at play in physical problems and can form the basis for exploring the intimate connection between the body and mind with patients. These new assessments include:
To familiarise yourself with these assessments, we’d recommend self-administering them before you give them to a real client. All NovoPsych subscriptions include access to these measures. We hope you find them useful!
Yours sincerely,
Ben
The Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI) contains 18 items that assess health anxiety independent of physical health status.
Items assess worry about one’s health, awareness of bodily sensations and/or changes, and the feared consequences of having an illness.
Health Anxiety (now referred to as Illness Anxiety Disorder in the DSM-5-TR and previously known as hypochondriasis) refers to inappropriate or excessive fears about one’s health. It is characterised by excessive fears or beliefs that one has a serious illness, and this is often based on the misinterpretation of bodily sensations or symptoms.
The TSK is a 17-item self-report measuring of fear of movement or (re)injury.
The developers define Kinesiophobia as “an irrational, and debilitating fear of physical movement and activity resulting from a feeling of vulnerability to painful injury or re-injury”.
The scale has two subscales:
The TSK has also been linked to elements of catastrophic thinking. The scale can be useful in measuring unhelpful thoughts and beliefs about pain in people with chronic pain and related conditions.
The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness measures eight dimensions of interoception (awareness of bodily sensations).
Interoception refers to the sensation, interpretation, and integration of internal somatic signals. There is compelling evidence demonstrating links between poor interoceptive awareness and difficulties with emotion awareness and emotion regulation. Interoception may be of clinical importance for individuals presenting with autism, eating disorders, alexithymia or chronic pain.
The MAIA subclass are:
There is a parallel youth version (MAIA-Y) for use with individuals 7 – 17 years of age.
The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) is a 10-item questionnaire developed to assess the confidence people with ongoing pain have in performing activities while in pain. It enquires into the level of self-efficacy regarding a range of functions, including household chores, socialising, work, as well as coping with pain without medication.
It takes two minutes to complete and is helpful in assessing the impact that pain is having on a respondent’s life. The scale can be helpful in developing a formulation around psychological factors that influences someone’s response to injury or unpleasant physical sensations. The scale is predictive of functional gains after injury.
If you know any professionals that might be interested in these scales, please forward them this email! We’re constantly adding assessments to the NovoPsych test library. To view over 150 of the current psychometric tools available you can visit our website: https://NovoPsych.
Warm regards,
Dr Ben Buchanan
Psychologist
NovoPsych Co-founder
[email protected]
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