K-CAT Youth Mental Health Assessment

The K‑CAT^® is a scientifically validated, computerized adaptive mental health test battery designed specifically for children and adolescents ages 7–17. Utilizing paired test sessions (Interviews) delivered through Q‑global^®, K‑CAT^® transforms traditional youth mental health screening into a fast, precise, and developmentally appropriate experience for both patients and clinicians.

Using advanced computerized adaptive testing (CAT) guided by multi-dimensional item response theory (MIRT), K‑CAT^® dynamically adjusts each assessment in real time based on the child’s or caregiver’s responses—selecting only the most informative items needed to achieve precise measurement. This approach dramatically reduces assessment length while maintaining high psychometric precision.

What K‑CAT^® Measures

K‑CAT^® includes self‑report and parent/caregiver‑report modules, allowing clinicians to capture a comprehensive picture of a youth’s mental and behavioral health across multiple perspectives. The assessment is validated for the following domains:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Mania / Hypomania
• Attention‑Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Conduct Disorder
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
• Substance Use Disorder (self‑report)
• Post‑Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; self‑report)
• Suicidality (self‑report)

Fast, Precise, and Youth‑Centered

K‑CAT^® adaptively selects a small set of items from a large, rigorously calibrated item bank, enabling highly precise measurements with minimal burden on children, caregivers, and clinicians. Average completion times are approximately 7.5 minutes for youth and 5 minutes for parents or caregivers, with only a few items administered per domain.

All item content is written at an age‑appropriate reading level and includes built‑in audio support to assist younger children and those with literacy challenges

Validation and Clinical Rigor

K‑CAT^® has been validated against semi‑structured clinical interviews for youth populations and published in peer‑reviewed scientific journals, demonstrating strong reliability and validity across supported domains.

This rigorous validation supports K‑CAT^® as a reliable tool for screening, severity measurement, and outcomes monitoring in a wide range of clinical and educational settings.

K‑CAT^® supports efficient, measurement‑based care for children and adolescents by helping clinicians and organizations:

• Screen for multiple mental health concerns in a single, brief assessment
• Identify youth at risk earlier and more accurately
• Support diagnostic decision‑making
• Monitor symptom change and treatment outcomes over time
• Scale youth mental health screening across schools, clinics, and health systems
• Triage incoming patients to determine level of service needs

Why choose K‑CAT^®?

The benefits of K‑CAT^® include:

• Comprehensive domain coverage: K‑CAT^® includes modules to assess a wide range of mental health concerns: Depression, Anxiety, Suicidality, ADHD, Mania/Hypomania, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, PTSD, and Substance Use
• Lower testing burden: Digital computerized adaptive testing from a test-session link lowers test taker burden and eliminates clinician burden
• Flexible, configurable assessment sessions: Clinicians can choose to administer all the assessments in a single session or select only the domains they are interested in for that given moment in time.
• Child and Parent Input: Paired interviews provide the most precise measurement of symptoms. When paired interviews are not available, either the child or parent responses can be used.
• Efficiency: The entire battery can be administered to most individuals in under 10 minutes. Any single module can be administered in 1-3 minutes.
• Precision: using Computer Adaptive Testing based on multi-dimensional item-response theory, results obtained provide a precision score, a suggested diagnostic classification and a specificity score so clinicians/educators can be highly confident in obtained results. When both the child and parent provide responses, diagnostic probability scores are provided.
• Individualized assessment: Computer Adaptive Testing means that examinees receive test questions based on their individual situation and responses. Subsequent test sessions are unique and do not administer the same questions over and over again.
• Large Item Bank: The K‑CAT^® adaptively selects a small optimal set of items from a large bank of approximately 2,120 items, targeted to each person’s current or historical level of severity.
• Accessibility: using our Q-global platform, users can access the tests from any internet enabled device. Assessments can be completed in the office, or remotely using a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
• Multi-purpose assessment: K‑CAT^® modules can be used for triage in healthcare or education settings, in advance of clinical appointments, or as part of ongoing outcome monitoring in a variety of settings.
• English and Spanish test items, selectable with or without audio voice

Resources

The following resources are available for K-CAT^®

• K-CAT^® and CAT-MH^® Reference List
• K-CAT^® Interpretive Guide 

Videos

• How K-CAT^® supports better clinical decisions
• The need for CAT-MH^®
• What is CAT and what is MIRT?
• Measuring Mental Health Constructs using MIRT
• Severity, categorization and precision scores for the CAT-MH^®
• Introducing the PTSD Module

• How were the CAT-MH^® and K-CAT^® measures validated?
• Using the CAT-MH^® and K-CAT^® across a variety of settings and purposes
• Introducing the PTSD Modules: PTSD-Diagnosis and PTSD-Expanded
• Introducing the SUD Modules: CAT-SUD Initial Assessment & CAT-SUD Outcome Monitoring
• Why use CAT-MH^® over free tools?

Sample Reports

• K-CAT^® Child Report - Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, with Suicide Alert
• K-CAT^® Child Score Report - Anxiety, Depression with Suicide Alert
• K-CAT^® Multirater Report - Anxiety, Depression, ADHD
• K-CAT^® Multirater Report - Full Battery with ODD CD ADHD and Suicide elevations
• K-CAT^® Parent Score Report - Full Battery with Depression and Anxiety elevations

What population can the K-CAT^® assess?

The K-CAT^® can be used to assess youth aged 7-17 in Spanish and English. The CAT-MH^® is available for adults ages 18+.

What can the K-CAT^® measure for?

The K-CAT^® assesses nine different mental health domains: depression, anxiety, mania/hypomania, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, conduct disorder, substance use disorder, PTSD, and suicidality. All domains can be completed by both youth and parents/caregivers, except PTSD, substance use disorder, and suicidality, which are youth self-report only. 

What are the main advantages of the K-CAT^®?

The K-CAT^® can dramatically increase precision while eliminating clinician and participant burden. Due to the adaptive nature of the testing tools pulling from a large item bank, each iteration of the assessment is likely to ask a unique set of questions that can eliminate response bias. The tools can also be administered on any web-capable device, allowing participants to respond to an assessment in an environment they are most comfortable in on a tablet, phone, or computer. This allows participants to be screened, measured, and monitored in or out of the clinic. Administering paired K-CAT^® interviews to both a child and caregiver can generate a unique probability of diagnosis result that represents the probability that a child would receive a given diagnosis if a full diagnostic interview was administered.

Has the K-CAT^® been validated against other assessments?

The K-CAT^® has been validated against structured clinical diagnostic interviews (e.g., K-SADS, CSSRS), so it can provide information on a large number of disorders and suicide risk. The CAT-MH^® for adults and K-CAT^® for youth are the only adaptive measurement systems that preserve the multidimensionality of complex mental health constructs and the only suites of mental health measures that have been fully validated against structured clinical diagnostic interviews. (See the Reference List found on the Resources tab)

What is the difference between Suicide severity and the Probability of Suicide Attempt?

The Suicide severity and associated categorization provide an indication of the level of suicidal ideation in the child. Items address suicidal thoughts and feelings of self-worth, etc. The severity score can provide an indication of change in suicidal ideation and behavior over time. The Probability of Suicide Attempt is a direct measure of the likelihood the child will make a suicide attempt in the next 3 months. The higher the probability, the more likely an attempt will be made. Since suicide is an uncommon occurrence, the suicide risk is highlighted whenever the probability is over 0.10.

How should differences in the severity and category metrics between the child and the parent be interpreted?

The child and parent scales use different severity thresholds, and parent thresholds are generally higher. As a result, one administration can show a higher severity score for one rater but a more severe category for the other. Because scores and category labels aren't directly comparable across raters, interpretation should follow the assessment's purpose. For screening, use the most conservative reading across raters: the highest severity score and the most severe category, even if they come from different raters. For monitoring change over time, track each rater's severity score separately rather than combining them. In both cases, the probability estimate is a useful additional indicator, since it draws on both the child and parent responses. 

How have other organizations used the K-CAT^®?

Because the same questions are not repeatedly administered, the K-CAT^® is ideal for longitudinal assessments essential for measurement-based care. The K-CAT^® has been used to successfully monitor mental health in emergency departments, primary care, research institutions, community care centers, large-scale health surveys, schools, and non-clinical wellness teams.

How is a clinician provided the results of the K-CAT^®?

Because the K-CAT^® assessments do not require clinician rating, the results from an assessment are immediately available to the clinician via the reporting function in Q-global. The results will include the severity score of each module, the associated severity category, the precision or level of confidence of that score, and the breakdown of the questions asked and the participant responses. If conducting paired interviews, the clinician will also be provided with a unique Probability of Diagnosis score once both the child and caregiver batteries are completed and reports are generated. If assessing suicidality, a suicide alert will be provided in the Child and/or Multirater report and will be the first module listed in the report. Alerts are noted in red ink in the reports. 

Does the K-CAT^® require an internet connection?

Yes, the K-CAT^® is administered through an online platform. Access to the internet is required to complete the assessment, and separately for clinicians to view the results. If an internet connection is lost during an assessment session and then reconnects, the assessment will resume at the point where the connection was lost. 

When should the K-CAT^® be administered?

The K-CAT^® has shown great value in both establishing a mental health baseline and tracking changes longitudinally over time. The tools have been validated for use during a variety of different timeframes ranging from lifetime to past hour. The K-CAT^® should be used as a clinician tool that can help inform mental health treatment plans and assess intake levels as well as post-treatment follow-up. It should not substitute for a diagnosis by a mental health professional. 

Is there an internal consistency or other validity scale provided with the K-CAT^®?

While there is no specific validity score provided, there are a number of ways in which inconsistent and/or invalid response patterns may be identified. Response time in seconds is provided for each item administered during the testing. Should response times be too short (less than an average of 2.5 seconds), then this could indicate random responding by the examinee. Additionally, each administered item is given a severity categorization - if all items administered are at the same level of severity, it is possible that this could be a sign of malingering or fixed responding. If a client responds to all questions in a given module with the same, or alternating responses, this could also be an indication of disingenuous or fixed responding (e.g. all responses as Never, or All of the Time) Lastly, the final precision score for the assessment can be used to identify inconsistent responses. A target score of 5 is the precision goal for each administration/assessment. Precision scores higher than 7 could be indicative of inconsistent responding. 

Are sample reports available for review?

Yes, sample reports can be found on the Resources tab. 

Is there an interpretation manual for the K-CAT^®?

Yes, the K-CAT^® Interpretation Guide is available both in the Resource Library in Q-global, as well as on the K-CAT^® product page on the Resources tab. 

Is there a reference list available for the K-CAT^®?

Yes, the Reference List is also available on the Resources tab.

Where is K-CAT^® data processed and stored? 

As with all Q-global assessments, client information and results are stored in Canada. Note however, that for the K-CAT^®, pseudonymized data is sent to Adaptive Testing Technology (ATT) servers in the United States for test administration and scoring. Results are then returned to Q-global for reporting and storage. Therefore, pseudonymized personal data is processed in the United States and is then in transit across international lines via the internet. Once result data is received by Q-global, all data for that test session is deleted from ATT’s servers. No Pearson data is stored by ATT. See your local office’s Privacy Policy for more information in this regard.