What does it mean when mental health screening scores are either ‘at risk’ or ‘clinically significant’?
Within the mental health screening area, ratings found to fall at the ‘clinically significant’ level are those for which a particular rater has endorsed a sufficient number of items from that particular category of DSM criteria to meet eligibility for such a diagnosis. At risk ratings suggest that the number of endorsed symptoms fell just short of DSM criteria. Back to Top I am occasionally getting at risk or clinically significant scores in the areas of thought disorder and/or autism spectrum disorder when I’m certain those diagnoses don’t apply. Why is this and how should those scores be interpreted? The areas of thought disorder and ASD are particularly vulnerable to false-positive identification due to the nature of those particular criteria. When uncertain about the likely validity of at risk or clinically significant ratings in those categories you may wish to simply note the possibility of false-positive identification. For situations in which you are quite certain that it is a
