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Kleptomania Disorder

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Kleptomania Disorder

Identify an instrument: Kleptomania Symptom Assessment Scale (K-SAS)

Identify a scholarly, peer-reviewed article that addresses the use of the instrument: Validity

and reliability of the Japanese version of the kleptomania symptom assessment scale: A

comparison between individuals with kleptomania and prisoners in Japan.

Discuss if the instrument is appropriate for diagnosing the condition it is designed to assess

or if the developers of the instrument reported that the instrument is only part of a

comprehensive assessment for the disorder: K-SAS is an 11-item diagnostic instrument

designed assess kleptomania disorder (Asami et al., 2020). The tool was developed and is widely

used to measure the severity of kleptomania disorder. Given its comprehensive items with a

scoring scale of 0 to 4, the instrument allows providers to determine the severity of the disorder,

allowing them to provide appropriate treatment recommendations to the patients.

Describe whether or not the instrument can be used to measure patient response to

therapy/treatment: Although it is was not designed to measure patient response to therapy, the

instrument can provide significant results when comparing patients under different treatments.

For instance, Asami et al. (2020) demonstrated that the instrument was used to compare scores of

patients two on different phases of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment, with the results

indicating no statistical significance, but maintenance CBT treatment produced less scores than

those in initial CBT (Asami et al., 2020).

Discuss the psychometrics of the instrument, including reliability and validity:

K-SAS is an 11-item self-report questionnaire established to assess symptoms of kleptomania,

with each item scored on a scale of 0-4; hence total score ranges from 0-44. The severity of the

symptoms would lie between 0 to 44, with 31-44 indicating severe, 21-30 indicating moderate,
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and 8-20 regarded as mild kleptomania. K-SAS has demonstrated good reliability and validity

(Asami et al., 2020). With n=12, fair test-retest correlation produced a correlation of .57 with a

high Cronbach’s alpha (0.90). The study done by Asami et al. (2020) demonstrated a good

reliability scores for the K-SAS with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.84, while both the convergent and

concurrent validity was found to be good. They

Concluded K-SAS to have good convergent validity and test-retest reliability as well as a high

Cronbach’s alpha value.

Discuss any limitations associated with the use of the instrument: The instrument is excellent

in assessing patients with kleptomania. There are no reported limitations of the tool compared to

other tools used to diagnose kleptomania.

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References

Asami, Y., Nomura, K., Shimada, H., Ohishi, H., & Ohishi, M. (2020). Validity and reliability of

the Japanese version of the kleptomania symptom assessment scale: A comparison

between individuals with kleptomania and prisoners in Japan. Comprehensive

psychiatry, 96, 152133.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X19300562