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Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS)
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Supplemental: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Exploratory: Unruptured Cerebral Aneurysms and Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (SAH)
Short Description of Instrument
The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) is a widely used 30-question interview that queries for a current or lifetime diagnosis of PTSD according to the PTSD DSM-IV criteria. The 17-item Life Events Checklist identifies any traumatic events experienced by the patient in accordance with criterion A. Symptoms are counted as present if they have a frequency score of at least 1 (scale 0 = "none of the time" to 4 = "most or all of the time") and intensity of at least 2 (scale 0 = "none" to 4 = "extreme"). The CAPS can be administered to combat veterans or other populations that may have experienced traumatic events.
The CAPS is widely considered as the gold standard for measuring PTSD in individuals 15 years and older.
The CAPS is a structured interview that must be administered by a clinician or trained professional. It takes between 25 min to 1 hour to complete.
A severity score can be calculated for each symptom by adding the frequency and intensity scores; scores can similarly be calculated for the three symptom clusters and for the 17 symptoms overall. The overall severity score ranges from 0 to 136.
Blake DD, Weathers FW, Nagy LM, Kaloupek DG, Gusman FD, Charney DS, Keane TM. The development of a Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale. J Trauma Stress. 1995;8(1):75–90.