Measurement Instruments for Research, Education, and Clinical Practice: Databases for Locating Instruments

A guide that shows where to locate measurement instruments as well as resources on using and adapting them.

Databases for Locating Instruments

HAPI - Health & Psychosocial Instruments (Ovid) This link opens in a new window
HAPI provides information about measurement instruments (i.e., questionnaires, interview schedules, checklists, index measures, coding schemes/manuals, rating scales, projective techniques, vignettes/scenarios, tests) in the health fields, psychosocial sciences, organizational behavior, and library and information science. It assists in the identification of measures for studies, grant proposals, client/patient assessment, and program evaluation.
PsycTESTS This link opens in a new window
PsycTESTS is a research database that provides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments as well as descriptive information about the test and its development and administration.
The content is primarily unpublished tests, but also includes links to buy commercially available instruments. To search this collection and other APA resources, please select the SEARCH link from the database menu.
Psychiatry Online This link opens in a new window
For further clinical evaluation and research, the APA is offering a number of “emerging measures” in Section III of DSM–5. These patient assessment measures were developed to be administered at the initial patient interview and to monitor treatment progress, thus serving to advance the use of initial symptomatic status and patient reported outcome (PRO) information, as well as the use of “anchored” severity assessment instruments. Instructions, scoring information, and interpretation guidelines are included. (From the APA DSM-5 website)
Core resources include: The DSM-IV-TR and DSM-IV Casebook, American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, Essentials of Clinical Psychopharmacology, and Clinical & Research News from Psychiatric News.

PsycTESTS

APA PsycTESTS (from the American Psychological Association)

Provides access to psychological measures, scales, surveys, and other instruments for the behavioral and social sciences. This is cross-linked by digital object identifier (DOI) to the PsycINFO database covered under the Searching Literature Databases with Test-Specific Fields section of this guide.

To see what tests are available full-text in the database, do a search and then check the "APA PsycTests PDF" box under Limit your Results. You can also limit to "Test Items Available" which indicates the test items are available in APA PsycTests.

There are several ways to search PsycTests:

1. Search by test name and select the TI Title field in the pull-down menu.

2. Search by keywords. Consider whether to limit your search with one or more of the many limit options as you move down the screen to focus your search by Age Group, Instrument Type, Language, Permissions, etc..

3. Search by using limits alone. One of the limit options is the APA PsycTests Classification. You can combine limits without using keywords to retrieve a list of relevant tests.

4. Combine these strategies.

Example: I am looking for a Spanish-language alcohol use assessment measure for teenagers. I select the Language limit for Spanish and limit to PsycTests Classification: 5000 Addiction, Gambling, and Substance Abuse/Use. Most of the results are not about alcohol, so I add the keyword alcohol to my search. I then limit to Age Group: Adolescence (13-17 years). Of the relevant tests I retrieve, one has a PDF in PsycTests and the other does not, but I look at both records to see about fees and permissions. The presence of the measure as a PDF does not mean that it is free to use--permissions are often required.