The CANSAS self-report for screening of needs in outpatients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders

The importance of needs assessment for service development has been widely recognized. In this study we examined the agreement between the Camberwell Assessment of Need Short Appraisal Schedule self-report version (CANSAS-P) and the Camberwell Assessment of Need interview-based scale in 100 outpatients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. We found equivalent number of met, unmet, and no needs for most of the domains of the two instruments. Both intraclass correlations and Kappa reliability coefficients were high for most need domains. The high agreement between the two instruments suggests that the CANSAS-P can be used as a screening tool to detect unmet needs in both clinical routine practice and research surveys in mental health outpatient settings.