How We Assess

At Vitanya, we utilize a range of comprehensive assessments that are both statistically reliable and valid. Our approach centers around evaluating key areas such as sleep, resilience, executive functioning, mental health variables (including stress, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic symptoms), and overall quality of life. We understand that these factors significantly impact individuals across their lifetime.

Our findings reveal that, for most clients, the first noticeable improvement is in sleep quality. Following that, the brain begins to "clear out the clutter," easing mental health symptoms and leading to improvements in resilience, performance, and overall well-being.

List of Assessments to Measure Client Progress Include:

The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)

Buysse, Reynolds, Monk, Berman, & Kupfer (1989) developed the PSQI, which is a 19-item measurement devise that examines sleep in seven domains: subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, use of sleep medication, and daytime dysfunction. The assessment uses a Likert-type scale where answers are scored on a 0-3 scale where 3 reflects the negative extreme.

Comprehensive Executive function Inventory Adult (CEFI-A)

Naglieri and Goldstein (2017) developed the CEFI-A, which is a 72-item measure used to examine a wide spectrum of behaviors associated with executive function in nine different areas including: attention, inhibitory control, planning, emotional regulation, initiation, self-monitoring, flexibility, organization, and working memory. The CEFI-A uses a 6-point Likert-type scale and has an additional 6 negative impression scale items to assess for validity of assessment.

Resilience Scale – 14 item (RS14)

In 2009 Wagnild developed the 14-item resilience scale based on the original Wagnild & Young (1993) resilience scale. This 14-item measure uses a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) to assess a person’s capacity to successfully maintain or regain mental health and well-being in the face of significant adversity or risk.

World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale – Brief (WHOQOL-Bref)

The WHOQOL-BREF instrument comprises 26 items, which measure the following broad domains: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment. The WHOQOL-BREF is a shorter version of the original instrument that may be more convenient for use in large research studies or clinical trials. This scale was developed by the WHOQOL Group with fifteen international field centers, simultaneously, in an attempt to develop a quality of life assessment that would be applicable cross-culturally.

PTSD Checklist-5 (PCL5)

The PCL-5 was developed to assess for the presence of PTSD and is consistent with the DSM-5 (Blevins, Weathers, Davis, Witte, & Domino, 2015). The PCL-5 is comprised of 20-questions that are on a Likert scale from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) which are summed, producing an aggregated score ranging from 0 to 80. Higher scores indicate the more severe the presence of PTSD symptomatology.

Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS)

The DASS is a set of three self-report scales designed to measure the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. Originally developed as a 42-item scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) it was later developed into a short form (Henry & Crawford, 2005). Each of the three DASS scales contains 7 items where Subjects are asked to use 4-point Likert scales to rate the extent to which they have experienced each state over the past week. Scores for Depression, Anxiety and Stress are calculated by summing the scores for the relevant items.