The community competence scale as a measure of functional daily living skills

Competence assessment is of growing interest to administrators and clinicians who work with deinstitutionalized psychiatric and geriatric populations. A new instrument, the Community Competence Scale (CCS), is a multiscale structured interview administered in a similar manner to the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. The CCS requires the subject to answer questions and perform tasks which are proximal corollaries of daily living skills. The psychometric properties of the CCS are reviewed. Results of studies involving administration of the CCS to deinstitutionalized psychiatri patients and geriatric patients are presented. The available data suggest that the CCS has considerable value as a preplacement screening instrument for determination of residential settings for chronic psychiatric patients. Since the original CCS requires between 60 and 90 minutes for administration, several recent studies have focused upon development of a short form. The results of this research effort are described. In sum, the CCS appears to demonstrate considerable value as a tool to aid decision making about community placement, social skills training and clinical competence determinations.