The purpose of the Handbook is to provide clinicians working in mental health or primary care settings with a compendium of the available rating scales and tests that may be useful in the clinical care of their patients or for their use in the interpretation of treatment and services research studies. In addition, the manual is designed to provide guidance to clinicians, policy makers, and planners on how to select, use and interpret clinical measures. The primary audience for the book, however, is psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians.

Accompanying the Handbook is a CD-ROM that includes complete copies of measures that are either in the public domain or for which permission to reprint in this handbook was granted from the copyright holders. In all, 108 measures are included on the CD-ROM -- over 900 pages. The CD-ROM also includes the complete, unabridged text of the Handbook of Psychiatric Measures, in fully searchable form. The electronic version is replete with links and cross-references, including links from the text of the handbook to the actual measures being discussed.