A comprehensive, most up-to-date EPOS assessment battery (EPOS Group, 2003) of more than 30 individual instruments and paradigms designed for the multi-level assessment of factors possibly contributing to clarifying the studies' research objectives.
These efforts included the development and/or adaptation of the EPOS inclusion and exclusion criteria (e.g. first simultaneous evaluation of Basic Symptom and Ultra-High Risk approach), screening procedures (e.g. EPOS screening module, PROD-screen in Finland), questionnaires and self-rating scales (EPOS Basic Data Form (BDF), Treatment Documentation Sheet (TDS), EPOS Scale of Life Events (Life Events), EPOS Trauma and Distress Scale (TADS), Pathways to care (Pathways), EPOS Client Service Receipt Inventory (EPOS CSRI), Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV (SCID), Substance Abuse Module of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI-SAM), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Interview for the Retrospective Assessment of the Onset of Schizophrenia (IRAOS), Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS 3.0), Positive and Negative Syndromes Scale (PANSS), Revised Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms (BSABS-P), Personality Disorder Questionnaire (PDQ-R), Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF-M), Disability Assessment Schedule - Second version (WHO-DAS II), Modular System for Quality of life (MSLQ-R), Level of Expressed Emotions Scale (LEE), common neuropsychological paradigms (Continuous Performance Test (CPT), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), Verbal Learning and Memory Test (VLMT), Finger Tapping Test (FTT), Spatial Working Memory Test (SWMT), and Verbal IQ Test (standard tests in the respective languages), neurophysiological parameters (P300 and Mismatch Negativity, MMN), and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures with respect to the methodological limits given by different scanners etc.
Potential end-users are psychiatric, psychological or public health investigators engaged in mental health research, especially early psychosis studies. As the main benefit, the EPOS Assessment Battery provides the most comprehensive prospective multi-level approach so far to prediction, treatment and health care system related research in early psychosis.