Abstract
Background: Self-management or self-control interventions are considered to have strong support as effective treatments for disorders related to volition and emotion management, and five self-report instruments have been designed to measure self-management skills to aid in assessment and treatment.
Aim: The current study was designed to provide guidelines for clinical cut-off scores which could be used to enhance the interpretability of self-management instruments and the scores they produce.
Materials and Methods: Two separate multi-ethnic samples of college students were administered a battery of questionnaires, including the measures of self-management and measures of anxiety and depression.
Results: The results obtained from participants with elevated anxious and depressive symptomatology were analyzed to obtain clinical cut-off scores. Both samples of participants produced similar cut-off scores across different measures of anxiety and depression.
Discussion: The consistency of obtained cut-off scores across samples suggests the validity of these scores. Future research should replicate these findings in other samples, including clinical samples.
Conclusion: The clinical cut-off scores obtained in this study may help guide the use and interpretation of these five self-management instruments.