Which instrument is a broad self-report symptom inventory used for adults to screen psychological symptoms?

• A. Beck Depression Inventory
• B. Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale
• C. SASSI
• D. SCL-90-R

Answer: (D)

A broad self-report symptom inventory for adults is designed to capture distress across multiple areas rather than a single condition. The SCL-90-R fits this need because it’s a 90-item questionnaire where adults rate a range of symptoms over the past week, covering nine dimensions such as somatization, obsessive-compulsive features, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. It also provides global indices like the Global Severity Index, offering an overall measure of psychological distress. This breadth makes it ideal for initial screening across a wide spectrum of symptoms in adults, whereas the other tools focus on specific domains or populations: the Beck Depression Inventory concentrates on depressive symptoms; the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale targets anxiety in children; and the SASSI screens for substance use risk.