Mental health professionals working with young people to identify risk of psychosis will now have access to significantly updated resources to aid in their assessments, with the release of the 2023 Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental State (CAARMS 23) instrument, record form and training module.
The CAARMS, originally developed in the 1990s and revised several times since, is a semi-structured interview designed for mental health professionals to evaluate psychotic symptoms on scales of severity and frequency.
The new CAARMS resources include an updated version of the assessment tool – with significantly expanded symptom scales – a new rating sheet to record responses, and a comprehensive new training module for clinicians working with young people.
The assessment is widely used in clinical services in Australia and internationally to determine if a young person meets criteria for an ‘at risk mental state’ or if they are at ultra-high risk of developing first episode psychosis (FEP). It is also used to assess and measure symptoms over time – with the aim of increasing understanding of the symptoms that might precede psychosis.
While earlier versions of the CAARMS assessed risk by measuring symptoms across four broad scales, the latest version has been revised and expanded to assess symptoms across 15 symptom scales, offering the opportunity for a more nuanced understanding of people’s experiences.
The CAARMS aims to identify risk and inform interventions that prevent or delay the onset of psychosis, reduce the duration of untreated psychosis, and prevent or minimise the impacts of the illness on young people's lives.