QPASS is the product of my attempt as a psychotherapist to glean the most valuable information on the psychological well being of my counselees in the least amount of time and expense possible. I embarked on this project as a way to minimize time in assessment and maximize my time in providing actual treatment.
Noticing that busy physicians have,on their clipboards, a set of the patient's vital signs(temperature, blood pressure,etc.) handy before entering the examination room,I asked myself:"What is the most important information for me to have at the start of each psychotherapy session?"
Realizing that my most productive counseling sessions seemed to be those in which I gained access to the patient's emotional distress early in the session, I reasoned that the sooner I had access to these emotions,the sooner I could respond to them, and have more time for actual therapy.
Emotional distress, in psychological literature, is called negative affect, or NA. NA can be boiled down to three basic emotions: depression, anxiety and anger. Unfortunately, the psychological instruments that assess these emotions comprehensively are specifically designed to measure only one of them. I designed QPASS so that my colleagues and I could assess NA and related constructs accurately and conveniently with one, singular instrument.
It is my hope that you will find that QPASS proves to be very useful in your setting. Please feel free to email me with any question,comment or suggestions you might have on the instrument.
Scott Lownsdale, Ed.D. Author
Support@QPASSLive.com
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
How Does QPASS Work?
This is the question that was emailed to me today. We have an extensive website that attempts to communicate the answer to that question and a lot more, but I will attempt a more succinct answer here.
QPASS is a self-report measure of the severity of depression, anxiety, anger, and related constructs.
Currently QPASS is only available as a paper version and can be ordered, with the accompanying manual from QPASSLive.com. A web version QPASS is in beta testing.
QPASS contains 105 items that the client rates on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely).
Qpass takes only about 10 minutes to complete.
Other Features
In addition to depression, anxiety, and anger, Qpass measures
* Global Psychopathology
* Psychoticism
* Obsessive-Compulsivity
* Phobic Avoidant Behavior
* Suicide Risk
* Violence Risk
* 14 subscales for depression, anxiety, and anger.
When the client finishes filling out the 105 item protocol, the examiner uses one of the reproducible (photocopiable) scoring sheets from the manual, adds up the score and has a score of anger, depression, anxiety, GPI and a list of other behaviors (red flag items, we call them) that a therapist would want to be aware of–things like violence tendencies, overeating, self-harm, substance abuse–just to name a few. this takes about 3 minutes.
There are additional reproducible scoring sheets available for the subscales included in the manual. Pricing is available on our order page at www.QPASSLive.com
Questions? Email me at Support@QPASSLive.com. Thanks for your interest in QPASS.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
QPASS expands to new markets
Thanks to all our new customers that have enabled QPASS to expand to new markets. Now, in addition to our customers in the United States and Canada, we have reached counseling organizations in Australia, Qatar, Bulgaria (where QPASS has issued its first translation license for a Bulgarian version) and Great Britain. Welcome to our new customers.
Remember, as always, we welcome your comments and suggestions. We want to know what you value about QPASS and how we could make changes to serve you and your clients more fully.
Our Mission: to greatly expand the assessment of mental health by offering quick, accurate, and inexpensive measurement of depression, anxiety, and anger in one convenient instrument.
Remember, as always, we welcome your comments and suggestions. We want to know what you value about QPASS and how we could make changes to serve you and your clients more fully.
Our Mission: to greatly expand the assessment of mental health by offering quick, accurate, and inexpensive measurement of depression, anxiety, and anger in one convenient instrument.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
QPASSLIve.com Expands with Online Shopping
The Quick Psycho-Affective Symptoms Scan (QPASS), has added online purchase capability to our website, QPASSLive.com. QPASS is a professional assessment tool used by mental health professionals in the measurement of depression, anxiety, anger and related constructs.
QPASS consists of 105 questions in a self-report format designed by a psychotherapist to offer a quick, accurate and inexpensive psychological measurement for use by professionals. It eliminates the need for a time-consuming, cumbersome and expensive test battery by providing one comprehensive assessment that can be completed in about 10 minutes. The introductory offer available online consists of 100 test protocols, the professional manual and reproducible scoring forms for $85.
"Qpass is practical, easy to administer, and easy to score. Very useful in busy counseling practice settings," states David Rising, Ed.D., Counseling Psychologist,
Williamsport, PA.
Additional information about QPASS, including a "Quick Facts" pdf download, can be found at QPASSLive.com. QPASS is available for purchase by mental health professionals with a graduate degree and at least one graduate course in testing and measurement.
About QPASS: QPASS is published by Heartland Publishing of Rockford Illinois. QPASS is authored by Dr. Scott Lownsdale, Ed.D., a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in private practice in Rockford, Illinois since 1993. His articles have been published in the Journal of Personality Assessment and the Journal of Psychology & Theology.
QPASS consists of 105 questions in a self-report format designed by a psychotherapist to offer a quick, accurate and inexpensive psychological measurement for use by professionals. It eliminates the need for a time-consuming, cumbersome and expensive test battery by providing one comprehensive assessment that can be completed in about 10 minutes. The introductory offer available online consists of 100 test protocols, the professional manual and reproducible scoring forms for $85.
"Qpass is practical, easy to administer, and easy to score. Very useful in busy counseling practice settings," states David Rising, Ed.D., Counseling Psychologist,
Williamsport, PA.
Additional information about QPASS, including a "Quick Facts" pdf download, can be found at QPASSLive.com. QPASS is available for purchase by mental health professionals with a graduate degree and at least one graduate course in testing and measurement.
About QPASS: QPASS is published by Heartland Publishing of Rockford Illinois. QPASS is authored by Dr. Scott Lownsdale, Ed.D., a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in private practice in Rockford, Illinois since 1993. His articles have been published in the Journal of Personality Assessment and the Journal of Psychology & Theology.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Opportunity Cost
One of the few things I remember from my college economics class many years ago is the concept of opportunity cost. Dictionary.com defines opportunity cost in this way: "The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action."
For example, if on your vacation you decide to go to the beach, your opportunity cost is the alternative trip that might have been taken instead (a skiing vacation, etc.).
This concept of opportunity cost is an especially important consideration in the therapy hour. What is the most important issue to deal with today? What crisis is my client having trouble revealing to me? What underlying issues are lurking and waiting to be discovered?
These types of questions were just a few of the reasons why Dr. Scott Lownsdale, a therapist himself, developed QPASS. A major benefit of QPASS is that it very quickly collects information on a large number and variety of behaviors and emotions. Depression? QPASS collects 26 symptoms. Anger? QPASS reveals 28 behaviors. Anxiety? 29 symptoms collected. What about other behaviors not so easily categorized? QPASS asks about another 22 "crisis behaviors" that could suddenly reprioritize your entire session. Items such as addictive behaviors and violence, to name just a couple show up in this section.
So imagine this: your client takes the QPASS assessment in your waiting room in about ten minutes, then enters your office and in the first three minutes of your session, you handscore their QPASS test. For the last three sessions you have been talking about the depression she has been experiencing in a less than satisfactory marriage. Now you see on her QPASS that your client has been having strong thoughts of harming herself, something she has not verbalized to you before.
This exact situation was reported to the QPASS Team not long ago by one of the many therapists who began using QPASS regularly in the last couple of years. Of course, this revelation changed the direction of that therapy hour and probably a number of them to follow. It also highlighted the fact that many clients will reveal infomration on paper that they can't seem to say out loud.
Not only can QPASS help you in prioritizing what topics you address in therapy, but can also just plain allow you more time to DO therapy. Without having to verbally go through a list of major concerns and check your client's status on each, you will have more time to really wade into the important issues of the day.
For more information on QPASS and all that it measures, check it out at QPASSLive.com. And if you are already using QPASS, please leave us your comments here. Thanks for spending some of your time here with us today.
For example, if on your vacation you decide to go to the beach, your opportunity cost is the alternative trip that might have been taken instead (a skiing vacation, etc.).
This concept of opportunity cost is an especially important consideration in the therapy hour. What is the most important issue to deal with today? What crisis is my client having trouble revealing to me? What underlying issues are lurking and waiting to be discovered?
These types of questions were just a few of the reasons why Dr. Scott Lownsdale, a therapist himself, developed QPASS. A major benefit of QPASS is that it very quickly collects information on a large number and variety of behaviors and emotions. Depression? QPASS collects 26 symptoms. Anger? QPASS reveals 28 behaviors. Anxiety? 29 symptoms collected. What about other behaviors not so easily categorized? QPASS asks about another 22 "crisis behaviors" that could suddenly reprioritize your entire session. Items such as addictive behaviors and violence, to name just a couple show up in this section.
So imagine this: your client takes the QPASS assessment in your waiting room in about ten minutes, then enters your office and in the first three minutes of your session, you handscore their QPASS test. For the last three sessions you have been talking about the depression she has been experiencing in a less than satisfactory marriage. Now you see on her QPASS that your client has been having strong thoughts of harming herself, something she has not verbalized to you before.
This exact situation was reported to the QPASS Team not long ago by one of the many therapists who began using QPASS regularly in the last couple of years. Of course, this revelation changed the direction of that therapy hour and probably a number of them to follow. It also highlighted the fact that many clients will reveal infomration on paper that they can't seem to say out loud.
Not only can QPASS help you in prioritizing what topics you address in therapy, but can also just plain allow you more time to DO therapy. Without having to verbally go through a list of major concerns and check your client's status on each, you will have more time to really wade into the important issues of the day.
For more information on QPASS and all that it measures, check it out at QPASSLive.com. And if you are already using QPASS, please leave us your comments here. Thanks for spending some of your time here with us today.
Monday, October 20, 2008
NEW! Call QPASS Toll-free!
Have questions about QPASS? You can now reach QPASS with your questions or to order at our toll free number (not yet posted on our website as of this blog) 1-800-887-1273.
Economic Woes Draw Many to Counseling
In a day when businesses are failing or reducing their workforce, many counselors are seeing a large influx of clients looking for help in dealing with the stresses the poor economy adds to their lives.
QPASS is a very useful instrument for counselors dealing with more potential clients than available face-to-face hours. By catching hidden crisis behaviors in its "Red Flag" section, and measuring anger, anxiety and depression, QPASS can aid in prioritizing counselees by the severity of their distress, often obtaining information missed in a clinical interview and in much less time.
Take a look at our website. A few minutes now to order QPASS can save you time and help track and organize client progess in the long run.
Monday, July 21, 2008
QPASS in The News
This article recently appeared on HealthyRockford.com, a website of the Rockford Register Starin Rockford, Illinois, where QPASS is based.
Local counselor offers new patient assessment tool
By Mike DeDoncker
Last update Jul 16, 2008 @ 10:49 AM
HealthyRockford.com
Sometimes, distaste can be the mother of invention.
That was partly the case in 1997 when Scott Lownsdale, a Rockford-based licensed clinical professional counselor, chose a doctoral dissertation topic that turned into a four-year research project with another six years of real-world testing. The result is the Quick Psycho-Affective Symptoms Scan (Qpass), a self-report psychological assessment test launched in 2007 and aimed at making the time mental-health professionals spend with patients more effective and making it easier to document that effectiveness to the insurance industry.
“One reason I developed the test is because I don’t like doing testing,” Lownsdale said. “I like doing therapy, so if it catches on I hope more effective therapy is done as what’s happening with my practice.
“I believe I’m having more time for therapy and I’m doing more effective therapy because of accurate testing being done in a very short period of time.”
The Qpass is a 105-question test that measures a patient’s depression, anxiety and anger which Lownsdale said “are the emotional underpinnings of almost all psychiatric problems.” He said the test typically takes about 10 minutes for the patient to complete and equated it to collecting a patient’s “psychological vital signs” before they see the doctor.
“When I showed it to my doctoral committee, we saw the potential for this test to be useful for almost all mental-health professionals,” Lownsdale said. “I spent extra time on the dissertation rather than just getting the dissertation done. I spent, perhaps, four years and enlisted the help of about 50 mental-health professionals across the country so it became a major research project using almost 500 mental-health patients who were patients of these mental-health professionals.”
Lownsdale said other testing materials are more expensive and lengthy.
“The gold standards are the Beck inventories for depression and anxiety and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory,” he said. “They’re very expensive and they take a lot of time. This instrument, we found through our research, can measure depression, anxiety and anger just as well if not better than all three of those major tests.”
Lownsdale said research on Qpass has shown that it can also measure 21 other indicators of emotional distress including phobic avoidance, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, suicide risk and risk for violence.
“These things were nice surprises,” he said. “There are little subscales that we found we could measure, although that was not the intention.”
The written Qpass test can be scored in three to 10 minutes, Lownsdale said, but must be interpreted by a mental-health professional with at least a master’s degree.
An online version can be scored instantly, he said.
“It collects an enormous amount of information in a very short time,” Lownsdale said, “and, when the therapist quickly scans the symptoms, they can zero in on a particular item.”
Lownsdale said a battery of tests can cost as much as $6 to $10. The paper version of Qpass goes for 69 cents.
“It’s so inexpensive that a lot of therapists are not even charging the insurance companies,” he said. “Our whole goal is to get mental health assessed. It’s not being assessed these days by therapists because of expensive instruments and you have to fill out insurance papers to get a simple test taken care of. It’s nonsense.”
Lownsdale said the testing costs and insurance paperwork are keeping testing from being performed “as much as it used to be and also not as much as it should be done.”
Lownsdale said he doesn’t envision himself as a testing expert “and if I ever did workshops on this for other therapists it would just be to teach them how to use this in their practices. That would give me tremendous satisfaction.”
Quick facts about Qpass
What: A 105-question self-report measure of the severity of depression, anxiety and anger that can be completed by a patient in 10 minutes.
Author: Scott Lownsdale, licensed clinical professional counselor
Cost: 69 cents per test
Where: Online at Qpasslive.com or Heartland Publishing, 3830 16th Ave., Rockford, IL 61108
Call: 815-229-8750
Mike DeDoncker is the editor of HealthyRockford.com. He can be reached at 815-987-1382 or mdedoncker@rrstar.com.
Local counselor offers new patient assessment tool
By Mike DeDoncker
Last update Jul 16, 2008 @ 10:49 AM
HealthyRockford.com
Sometimes, distaste can be the mother of invention.
That was partly the case in 1997 when Scott Lownsdale, a Rockford-based licensed clinical professional counselor, chose a doctoral dissertation topic that turned into a four-year research project with another six years of real-world testing. The result is the Quick Psycho-Affective Symptoms Scan (Qpass), a self-report psychological assessment test launched in 2007 and aimed at making the time mental-health professionals spend with patients more effective and making it easier to document that effectiveness to the insurance industry.
“One reason I developed the test is because I don’t like doing testing,” Lownsdale said. “I like doing therapy, so if it catches on I hope more effective therapy is done as what’s happening with my practice.
“I believe I’m having more time for therapy and I’m doing more effective therapy because of accurate testing being done in a very short period of time.”
The Qpass is a 105-question test that measures a patient’s depression, anxiety and anger which Lownsdale said “are the emotional underpinnings of almost all psychiatric problems.” He said the test typically takes about 10 minutes for the patient to complete and equated it to collecting a patient’s “psychological vital signs” before they see the doctor.
“When I showed it to my doctoral committee, we saw the potential for this test to be useful for almost all mental-health professionals,” Lownsdale said. “I spent extra time on the dissertation rather than just getting the dissertation done. I spent, perhaps, four years and enlisted the help of about 50 mental-health professionals across the country so it became a major research project using almost 500 mental-health patients who were patients of these mental-health professionals.”
Lownsdale said other testing materials are more expensive and lengthy.
“The gold standards are the Beck inventories for depression and anxiety and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory,” he said. “They’re very expensive and they take a lot of time. This instrument, we found through our research, can measure depression, anxiety and anger just as well if not better than all three of those major tests.”
Lownsdale said research on Qpass has shown that it can also measure 21 other indicators of emotional distress including phobic avoidance, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, suicide risk and risk for violence.
“These things were nice surprises,” he said. “There are little subscales that we found we could measure, although that was not the intention.”
The written Qpass test can be scored in three to 10 minutes, Lownsdale said, but must be interpreted by a mental-health professional with at least a master’s degree.
An online version can be scored instantly, he said.
“It collects an enormous amount of information in a very short time,” Lownsdale said, “and, when the therapist quickly scans the symptoms, they can zero in on a particular item.”
Lownsdale said a battery of tests can cost as much as $6 to $10. The paper version of Qpass goes for 69 cents.
“It’s so inexpensive that a lot of therapists are not even charging the insurance companies,” he said. “Our whole goal is to get mental health assessed. It’s not being assessed these days by therapists because of expensive instruments and you have to fill out insurance papers to get a simple test taken care of. It’s nonsense.”
Lownsdale said the testing costs and insurance paperwork are keeping testing from being performed “as much as it used to be and also not as much as it should be done.”
Lownsdale said he doesn’t envision himself as a testing expert “and if I ever did workshops on this for other therapists it would just be to teach them how to use this in their practices. That would give me tremendous satisfaction.”
Quick facts about Qpass
What: A 105-question self-report measure of the severity of depression, anxiety and anger that can be completed by a patient in 10 minutes.
Author: Scott Lownsdale, licensed clinical professional counselor
Cost: 69 cents per test
Where: Online at Qpasslive.com or Heartland Publishing, 3830 16th Ave., Rockford, IL 61108
Call: 815-229-8750
Mike DeDoncker is the editor of HealthyRockford.com. He can be reached at 815-987-1382 or mdedoncker@rrstar.com.
Friday, July 11, 2008
What in the World is QPASS?
Welcome to the QPASS Blog!
What is QPASS? QPASS is the acronym for the Quick PsychoAffective Symptoms Scan, a new self-report psychological assessment for professionals in the mental health community. QPASS is composed of 105 questions that measure Anger, depression, and anxiety in just about 10 minutes. QPASS also assesses patients risk of "red flag behaviors" such as abusing drugs/alcohol, violence tendencies, suicidality and more.
More information about QPASS
You can learn a lot more about QPASS at our company website: QPASSLive.com. You can also download a QPASS Quickfacts pdf from that site. Order forms are also available there. You can also email us directly at support@qpasslive.com
Questions and Answers
Do you use QPASS? Please give us feedback on its efficacy in your setting! Do you have questions about QPASS? We would be glad to answer them. Do you use assessments at all? What do you like or dislike about the assessments you use? This blog is here for you so please let us know what you think!
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