Lighthouse Institute, the research and training division of Chestnut Health Systems (our parent company), developed the GAIN family of instruments (www.chestnut.org/li/gain), which includes the GAIN-SS. The GAIN instruments have been used in hundreds of studies and are psychometrically robust and scientifically valid.
The five minute GAIN-SS is designed for three primary purposes:
- To serve as a screener in general populations to quickly and accurately identify clients have one or more behavioral health disorders (e.g., internalizing or externalizing psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, or domestic violence problems), which would suggest the need for referral to some part of the behavioral health treatment system. It also rules out those who would not be identified as having behavioral health disorders and may be more appropriate for brief intervention or counseling.
- To serve as a common metric across multiple systems or remote staff (e.g., employee assistance program with multiple contractors) and as a denominator for quality assurance on the extent to which the rate of diagnoses/referrals are consistent with the estimated mix of problems from the GAIN-SS.
- To serve as a periodic measure of change in behavioral health over time.
The GAIN-SS is designed for self or staff administration on the web, on a computer, or with paper and pen. The web application (GAIN ABS) can be integrated into client management systems. It can be easily converted to a scannable form or incorporated into existing instrument batteries or systems. Versions in different languages (such as Spanish) are also available.
For additional information concerning the larger family of GAIN instruments and their underlying psychometrics go to the GAIN home page. Please click here to see a sample of the GAIN-SS.
You will need the free Adobe Reader to view the GAIN-SS.