ABSTRACT
The "depth" of content coverage refers to the need to sample across the full range of construct severity. To ensure adequate depth of coverage, the scales were designed to include items reflecting both its milder and its most severe forms. The use of fouralternative scaling provides each item with the capacity to capture differences in the severity of the manifestation of a feature of a particular disorder and is further justified psychometrically in that it allows a scale to capture more true variance per item, meaning that even scales of modest length can achieve satisfactory reliability. This item type may also be preferred by clinicians who are considering particular items (e.g., risk indicators) or by clients, who often express dissatisfaction with forced-choice alternatives because they feel that the truth is between the two extremes presented.
