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Type of Measure: The Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) evaluates the lowest level of emotional or behavioral functioning given a specific time period. It uses a interval scores from 1-100 to assess the functioning of the child with 100 equating to “superior functioning” and 1 equating to “needs constant supervision.” via The Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health website

Target Population: Completed by a clinician for children and adolescents ages 4-16

Measurement properties and previous use: The creators of the measure Schaffer et al. (1983) tested the interrater reliability of the CGAS by asking five second-year clinical psychiatry fellows to read nineteen case histories. They found an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.84 which is statistically significant. To retest the validity of the measure, they asked the students to complete the original exercise a second time and found a intraclass coefficient of 0.85. According to The Ontario Center of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health Website, intraclass coefficients have ranged from 0.53-0.92. Lundh et al. (2010) found the intraclass correlation coefficient to be 0.73 and Bird et al. (1987) identified intraclass coefficients within this range.

Languages: English, Spanish, and Swedish

Authors and Citation: Bird, H. R., Canino, G., Rubio-Stipec, M., & Ribera, J. C. (1987). Further measures of the psychometric properties of the Children’s Global Assessment Scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44(9), 821-824.

Lundh, A., Kowalski, J., Sundberg, C. J., Gumpert, C., & Landén, M. (2010). Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) in a naturalistic clinical setting: Inter-rater reliability and comparison with expert ratings. Psychiatry Research, 177(1), 206-210.

Schaffer D, Gould MS, Brasic J, et al. (1983) A children’s global assessment scale (CGAS).  Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 1228-1231.

Licence: According to The Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health: The majority of materials on the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health website that are produced by the Centre are protected under a Creative Commons Canada License (unless otherwise indicated). These materials may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes only. Acknowledgement must be given to the Centre as the author and distributor of the material.

Link to measure: Children Global Assessment Scale

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