Are the Kessler Psychological Scales suitable for screening for mental disorders in low-threshold mental health services in German-speaking countries?

IntroductionThe Kessler Psychological Distress Scales (K10 and K6) are used as screening tools to assess psychological distress and are the first-line assessment of need for help in the Headspace services.ObjectivesThus, we studied the psychometric properties of their German versions in a Swiss community sample to evaluate their potential usefulness to screen for mental disorders or relevant mental problems in low threshold transdiagnostic German-speaking services.MethodsThe sample consisted of 829 citizens of the Swiss canton Bern of age 19-43 years. K10/K6 were validated against Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.) diagnoses, questionnaires about health status and quality of life. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were used to test for general discriminative ability and to select optimal cut-offs of the K10 and K6 for non-psychotic full-blown and subthreshold mental disorders.ResultsCronbach’s alphas were 0.81 (K10) and 0.70 (K6). ROC analyses indicated much lower optimal thresholds than earlier suggested; 10 for K10 and 6 for K6. At these thresholds, against M.I.N.I. diagnoses, Cohen’s Kappa (