{"doi":"10.1101/2024.11.26.24317940","title":"The Catatonia Quick Screen (CQS): A Rapid Screening Tool for Catatonia in Adult and Pediatric Populations","abstract":"Abstract Introduction Catatonia is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by significant disturbances in motor, cognitive, and affective functioning and that is frequently under-diagnosed. To enhance clinical detection of catatonia, this study aimed to develop a rapid, sensitive Catatonia Quick Screen (CQS) using a reduced set of catatonic signs to facilitate screening in adult and pediatric patients. Methods Data were derived from two retrospective cohorts totaling 446 patients (254 adults, 192 children) who screened positive for catatonia using the Bush Francis Catatonia Screening Instrument (BFCSI). Sensitivity analyses were performed for all combinations of BFCSI signs, with sensitivity defined as the proportion of patients identified by each subset relative to the full BFCSI. The CQS was developed by selecting signs from the BFCSI based on sensitivity, ease of assessment, and relevance to diverse catatonia presentations. Results Screening for the presence of any one of four signs—excitement, mutism, staring, or posturing—using the CQS yielded a theoretical sensitivity of 97% (95% CI: 95 to 98%) relative to the full BFCSI (which requires two signs out of 14). The CQS demonstrated 97% sensitivity across both pediatric and adult subsets. Conclusion The Catatonia Quick Screen provides a rapid screening alternative to the BFCSI with high sensitivity, potentially improving early detection of catatonia in clinical settings. Future prospective studies are necessary to validate the CQS’s sensitivity and to determine its specificity in clinical populations. Significant Outcomes The Catatonia Quick Scale (CQS) is a newly developed rapid screen for catatonia. Assessment for any one of four signs—excitement, mutism, staring, and posturing—has 97% sensitivity for detecting catatonia relative to the BFCSI. This screening is sensitive in both adult and pediatric populations. Limitations The study relies on retrospective data. Only patients who initially screened positive for catatonia were included, so the specificity of the CQS could not be assessed. Most of the sample has a primary psychiatric diagnosis so the generalizability to patients with primary medical disorders is unclear.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2024,"id":492506,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9566,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":230842,"name":"Mark Kalinich","orcid":"0000-0002-8794-1289","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106785,"name":"Jo Ellen Wilson","orcid":"0000-0003-2565-8012","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632945,"name":"Jinyuan Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-6689-8245","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1338757,"name":"D. Catherine Fuchs","orcid":"0000-0003-1387-4092","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1338758,"name":"Andrew Francis","orcid":"0000-0002-1614-1460","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311347,"name":"Stephan Heckers","orcid":"0000-0003-3601-9910","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":279489,"name":"Gregory L. Fricchione","orcid":"0000-0002-8907-350X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":514602,"name":"Joshua R. Smith","orcid":"0000-0001-7008-165X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":471645,"name":"James Luccarelli","orcid":"0000-0002-1606-3917","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":41,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:08:56.210382Z","pmid":"39649599","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}