Dr. Sheehan’s earliest scales, such as the Sheehan Panic Disorder Scale (SPS) and Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS) addressed the need for simple, clear easy-to-use instruments to assess and track symptom severity and functional impairment in trials of new medications for anxiety, phobic and panic disorders.
Early on, he also designed two global improvement scales, the Sheehan – Global Improvement Scales (S-CGI-21 & S-PGI-21). These 21-point clinician and patient rated improvement scales were initially developed to be more sensitive outcome measures to detect efficacy signals in schizophrenia trials. A benefit of the S-CGI-21 and the S-PGI-21 was that compared to the standard 7-point global impressions scales (such as the CGI-I & PGI-I), the S-CGI-21 & S-PGI-21 allowed more points to make finer discriminations to detect improvement or deterioration in response to treatment.
Dr. Sheehan’s later scales such as the Sheehan Irritability Scale (SIS), the Sheehan - Suicidality Tracking Scale (S-STS), and the Sheehan - Homicidality Tracking Scale (S-HTS) were developed to meet the need for key symptoms, such as irritability or suicidality in mood disorder trials and trials to specifically assess the effectiveness of anti-suicidal medications.
Although initially developed for clinical trials for treatments for specific mental health disorders, Dr. Sheehan’s scales are now widely used in primary care, in mental health settings, inpatient and outpatient, in population research and, in the case of the SDS, the CGI-21 & S-PGI-21, and the S-STS in treatment studies for many different physical and mental health disorders.
For a list of Dr. Sheehan’s scales, please CLICK HERE.
