Exploratory analysis of normative performance on the UCSD Performance‐Based Skills Assessment‐Brief

Abstract

The UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA) is a performance-based measure of functional capacity. The brief, two-domain (finance and communication ability) version of the assessment (UPSA-B) is now widely used in both clinical research and treatment trials. To date, research has not examined possible demographic-UPSA-B relationships within a non-psychiatric population. We aimed to produce and describe preliminary normative scores for the UPSA-B over a full range of ages and educational attainment. The finance and communication subscales of the UPSA were administered to 190 healthy participants in the context of three separate studies. These data were combined to examine the effects of age, sex, and educational attainment on the UPSA-B domain and total scores. Fractional polynomial regression was used to compute demographically-corrected T-scores for the UPSA-B total score, and percentile rank conversion was used for the two subscales. Age and education both had significant non-linear effects on the UPSA-B total score. The finance subscale was significantly related to both gender and years of education, whereas the communication subscale was not significantly related to any of the demographic characteristics. Demographically corrected T-scores and percentile ranks for UPSA-B scores are now available for use in clinical research.

Temporal Stability of Cognitive Functioning and Functional Capacity in Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

“…However, in the present sample, only FC performance did not change over time, with MCCB scores showing a statistically significant practice effect in the context of very high correlations across the two assessments (Dunlop et al, 2017;Hodgins et al, 2018). The level of cognitive performance of our sample was approximately 0.5 SD on average less than a national normative sample used in the creation of the MCCB norms and performance on the functional capacity measure was 0.43 SD worse than the data published in a previous normative study of the UPSA (Vella et al, 2017).…”

“…The UPSA-B's two domains (Communication and Finance) result in a summary score ranging from 0 to 100. Average performance of healthy controls on the UPSA-B (Vella et al, 2017) was 83.7 with a standard deviation of 10.2.…”

Construct validity, sensitivity and specificity of the USCD Performance-based Skill Assessment 2 in a mixed Portuguese sample

“…Consistent with previous findings (Garcia-Portilla et al, 2013;Mausbach et al, 2007;Patterson et al, 2001;Vella et al, 2017), the UPSA-2-PT results showed patients have a significant in functional capacity comparing to controls or their first-degree relatives, who were generally older participants.…”

Neuropsychological predictors of performance-based measures of functional capacity and social skills in individuals with severe mental illness

“…Neuropsychological tests that were significant at p<0.05 at the bivariate level were entered as predictors of UPSA-B and SSPA in forward selection stepwise regression models, along with associated psychiatric symptom severity variables and diagnostic category (major depression coded as 1; bipolar disorder coded as 2; schizophrenia-spectrum disorders coded as 3). Additionally, years of education was also included in the model given its demonstrated association with UPSA-B performance (Mausbach et al, 2010; Vella et al, 2017). There were significant demographic differences by diagnostic group in gender and racial/ethnic minority status ( p s<0.05); however, these were not included within the regression models given the use of standardized t-scores.…”