Broad-Spectrum Screening | Bipolar | Psychosis | Autism | Personality Pathology
Broad-spectrum: B-HiTOP, MAPsy
Bipolar: MDQ, GBI, PMQ-9/PHQ-9 paired screening
Personality: PID-5-SF, BSL-23, MSI-BPD
Autism: AQ, RAADS-R, CAT-Q
Dissociation: MID-60, DES-II
ADHD: ASRS, ASRS-O, WURS-25
Depression and anxiety: DASS-21, DASS-42, GAD-7, PHQ-9
Trauma: PCL-5, LEC-5, ITQ
Substance use: AUDIT, DUDIT
Sleep: AIS
Emotion regulation: DERS
Most of what gets missed in adult mental health is not missed because it is subtle. It is missed because the client comes in with a different presenting issue, so the clinician focuses on that and doesn’t have time to formally assess the 20 separate broad diagnostic classes in the DSM, and over 300 diagnostic labels.
But imagine having a clear picture of how every adult client maps onto the DSM, before they even walk through the door. This webinar will explore how that is possible, and the benefits of systematic screening.
Duration: 1.5 hours
Check if this webinar counts towards your CE/CPD requirements.
The consequences of missing an underlying mental disorder are measurable. For example, one in five adults presenting to mental health services with depressive symptoms in fact have a bipolar or bipolar-related disorder (Mak, 2009; Olfson et al., 2005). In autism, the pattern repeats: adults, and particularly women and gender diverse adults, arrive at a first diagnosis in their thirties or forties, having been treated for years for the anxiety and depression that sat on top of an unrecognised profile.
This webinar is about a structured way to improve assessment that doesn’t rely on clinical intuition. Dr Simon Baker and Dr David Hegarty will work through how a systematic, dimensional screening layer at intake changes what a clinician sees, and will use case studies to demonstrate the power of systematic screening.
Presenters Dr Simon Baker, Dr David Hegarty and A/Professor Miri Forbes will explore:
By the end of this session, participants should be able to:
Reconstructing Psychopathology (Forbes et al., 2025, Clinical Psychological Science)
Start a free 15-day trial with full access to administer these assessments:
Adult ADHD Observer-Report Scale (ASRS-O)
Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS)
Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)
Borderline Symptom List (BSL-23)
Brief Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (B-HiTOP)
Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q)
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales – Long Form (DASS-42)
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales – Short Form (DASS-21)
Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)
Dissociative Experiences Scale – II (DES-II)
Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT)
General Behaviour Inventory (GBI)
Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7)
International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ)
Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 (LEC-5)
McLean Screening Instrument for BPD (MSI-BPD)
Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ)
Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation – 60-item version (MID-60)
Multilevel Assessment of Psychopathology (MAPsy)
Patient Health Questionnaire – Depression (PHQ-9)
Personality Inventory for DSM-5 – Short Form (PID-5-SF)
PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5)
Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale – Revised (RAADS-R)
The MAPsy can be used with people aged 16 and over. There isn’t a version for children and younger teens yet, and there’s no childhood HiTOP measure at this stage.
The MAPsy doesn’t give a diagnosis. It screens for the symptoms of a wide range of DSM-5 disorders and shows which areas could be worth following up in your assessment and interview. It doesn’t recommend specific follow-up measures yet, but that’s something we’re looking at for a future version.
Yes. DSM-5 allows both diagnoses, and OCD is more common in autistic people than in the general population. The challenge is telling them apart. On the MAPsy, the same repetitive-behavior question counts toward both scales, so a high score on one can lift the other. In the interview, ask what the behavior does for the person. If it reduces anxiety or prevents a feared outcome, that points to OCD. If it brings comfort or predictability, that’s more consistent with autism.
No, and it isn’t meant to be one. The risk panel flags any of the four suicidality items the client has endorsed, so the clinician sees them straight away and can follow up with a proper risk assessment.
That’s a limitation of any self-report measure, including the MAPsy. If a client has limited insight or wants to present well, their scores will probably be lower than they should be. It’s best used alongside the interview and other information you have about the client.
No. We looked at it, but the differences between female and male respondents were small across the constructs. There are separate Youth (16–24) and Adult (25+) norms, because age made more of a difference.
The reference sample comes from Forbes et al.’s study, with respondents mainly from Australia and the US. How the MAPsy performs across more culturally and racially diverse groups is something we’d like to look at. So far it has only been developed and examined in English.
The MAPsy is designed first as a broad intake assessment. Repeating it later in treatment could show how different symptom domains are responding, and pick up new problems that emerge or become more prominent as treatment unfolds. How stable the scores are over time, and how they change as clients improve, are among the next steps in our research.
We’re looking at building an adaptive version that asks each client only the items most relevant to them, to make the MAPsy even shorter without compromising the quality of the scores.
Yes. You can save the report as an HTML file, and it will open offline in a browser. There’s also a Download PDF button on the report.
Explore the sample reports for Sam, Mark and Jess, the three case studies from the webinar, at MAPsy example reports, or view an interactive sample report.
Yes. A BAA is available to all US customers on a Pro plan or any higher tier, with no separate request needed. Download the PDF from the Business Associate Agreement page.
Associate Professor Miri Forbes is a leading researcher in the classification of mental disorders, with an internationally recognised track record in advancing evidence-based alternatives to traditional diagnostic frameworks. Since being awarded her PhD in Psychology in 2014, she has produced a substantial body of peer-reviewed research that has shaped the field’s understanding of the structure of psychopathology.
Her work draws on large-scale epidemiological and clinical datasets to identify the underlying dimensions that explain why symptoms and disorders so often co-occur. This research has contributed to the development and refinement of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model, offering a more precise and scientifically grounded approach to assessment.
A/Prof Forbes has held competitive fellowships at the University of Minnesota, the Centre for Emotional Health, and Macquarie University, supported by prestigious awards such as the Macquarie University Research Fellowship (2018) and back-to-back NHMRC Investigator Grants (2021, 2026). She has authored numerous high-impact publications in leading journals, with her findings cited widely across psychology, psychiatry, and public health.
Dr Simon Baker is a Research Fellow at NovoPsych, where he researches and develops the psychological scales in NovoPsych’s assessment library, giving clinicians scientifically validated and clinically useful psychometric tools. His current focus is hierarchical assessment of psychopathology and adaptive testing.
Simon joined NovoPsych after 15 years in mental health research, spanning neuroimaging, digital mental health, prevention, implementation science, and service evaluation at Monash University, the Black Dog Institute, and Orygen.
Dr David Hegarty is a Registered Psychologist with over 20 years of experience working with children, teachers, and families as both an educator and a school psychologist. His career has included roles as a teacher, academic coordinator, and school psychologist across many schools, as well as private child and adolescent practice. His postgraduate training at the University of Sydney, including a Master of Health Science in Child and Adolescent Psychology and a PhD in computerised adaptive cognitive training, bridges direct experience with young people and a deep technical grounding in measurement and statistics.
David has particular interests in the development and validation of psychometric tools, and in the statistical foundations that determine how confidently a score can inform clinical decisions. He is especially focused on helping clinicians interpret assessment data with young people so that findings translate into usable, evidence-based decisions.
In his role as Head of Psychometrics at NovoPsych, and as an Adjunct Professional Fellow at Southern Cross University, David oversees scale development and contributes to the statistical methods behind the platform’s assessment tools. His focus is on keeping the measures clinicians rely on grounded in rigorous science while remaining accessible, interpretable, and clinically useful.