Pediatric Symptom Checklist for Mental Health

The PSC (Pediatric Symptom Checklist) is usually completed by parents and is often used by pediatricians as one part of a well-child checkup. It helps pediatricians see how a 4-16 year old child is functioning at home, at school, with friends and family, in their activities, and with their moods and behavior. You can fill out the PSC online for free as many times as you like by clicking on the link to right on this page.

You can also print or download a copy of the scoring report for free if you wish and you can share this with your child’s pediatrician, teacher, or anyone else. Your answers and the report are anonymous and confidential. We do not keep copies or share results of these online forms with anyone else.

This service is provided free to the public by the authors of the PSC and by CNS Vital Signs. CNS Vital Signs is one of the world’s leading providers of neuropsychological software. For more information please visit their website at CNSVS.com.

It is important to understand that, while the PSC is valid and reliable, it is not diagnostic of any specific condition. Although a higher PSC score often suggests a problem that can be helped, a positive screen does not necessarily mean that your child has a disorder. PSC scores simply show how many problems are reported about a child and whether or not those scores are very high compared to other children. Whether the results are clinically significant is something that can only be decided in consultation with your child’s pediatrician or another qualified clinician like a psychologist or social worker. So if the report does show a very high score, please consider discussing it with your child’s pediatrician or a mental health professional.

Instructions

Click on this link to begin filling out the PSC on the CNS Vital Signs website.

You are asked your child’s age only to allow scoring of the test by the computer. If your child is younger than 6, the norms used in the scoring report are not valid. For this reason, the program will not work if parents enter an age younger than 65. If your child is 4 or 5 years old, you may enter a 6 in the box for age and use a total score cutoff of 24 instead of 28, (the cutoff score for older children). The subscale scores have not been validated for children younger than 6.

After entering your child’s age in the blank box after the word “Age” [“Enter age and press the Test button”], click on the word “Test” and follow the prompts on the screen. When you finish answering the last question on the PSC, click on the box that says “View Report.” When the file download box opens, click “Save” and indicate where on your computer you would like to save the PSC PDF report.