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Methodology: How MindCheck Tools Works

Editorial corrections: 2026-09-05. Site owner: Jason Ramirez, CADC-II.

Important: Screeners on this site are educational. They are not diagnostic instruments and they do not replace evaluation by a qualified clinician. For immediate crisis support in the United States, call 988 or text 988, or text HOME to 741741. For immediate danger, call 911 in the U.S. or your local emergency number elsewhere.

For U.S. treatment referral and information, call 1-800-662-4357 (SAMHSA National Helpline). This is not crisis counseling. Find crisis and international support resources.

Why this page exists

Mental health screening is a high-stakes context. People who reach this site are often worried about themselves or someone they love. They deserve to know exactly what they are using, who reviewed it, and what the limits are. This page describes the site's editorial standards; it does not certify every implementation or replace a page-specific evidence and review record.

How instruments are selected

Published instruments are assessed separately for evidence, rights, implementation fidelity, and suitability for this public setting:

  • Peer-reviewed validation. The instrument has at least one validation study published in a peer-reviewed journal, in a defined population. Relevant measures differ by purpose: not every well-being or research scale has diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Evidence for an instrument does not validate this website's implementation or every population.
  • Established use. It is in active clinical or research use, cited in published guidelines, or distributed by a credible body such as the developing authors, a professional association, or a public agency.
  • Intended-use rights. Terms must cover the exact version, reproduction, electronic administration, scoring, and the site's actual commercial context. Free access does not by itself mean noncommercial use. Permission for one version or setting does not transfer automatically to another. Unresolved permission is not clearance; information-only pages do not administer the instrument. See the instrument-rights guide.
  • Traceable source. The original publication can be cited and, where possible, linked to PubMed. The full citation is documented on the clinical evidence page.

MindCheck Tools also publishes original educational self-reflection tools, calculators, worksheets, and skills-practice aids. Those pages are labeled as educational or reflective, do not claim clinical validation, and are not included in the clinical-evidence directory unless a named published instrument is actually implemented.

How scoring is preserved

For an interactive published instrument, the implementation should be checked against its exact authorized source version: wording, order, response options, reverse scoring, and interpretation boundaries. Automated tests check defined software behavior; they do not establish clinical validity or prove that every implementation detail has been independently reviewed. Information-only pages do not score responses.

Interpretation depends on the exact instrument, study population, setting, and purpose. Page-specific sources and limitations matter; a screening result is not a diagnosis. Changing instrument items, response scales, thresholds, or scoring requires a separate rights and qualified-review check, not merely an editorial update.

How your responses are handled

Screeners run in your browser. Your answers are scored on the device you are using. The site does not transmit your individual responses to any server, does not store them in a database, and does not require an account to use any tool. Closing the page or reloading it discards the responses unless a tool offers an explicit local-save option, in which case the data stays in your own browser storage.

MindCheck Tools does not use display advertising. Optional Vercel Web Analytics is restricted to an explicit neutral-page allowlist, strips query strings and fragments, and is suppressed under Global Privacy Control. Screening, condition-specific education, and crisis pages are excluded. Ordinary hosting and security requests still occur. See the privacy policy for the limits of browser-local processing.

Editorial oversight and review limits

The site is maintained by Jason Ramirez, CADC-II, a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor Level II (CADC-II). His role and stated experience are described on his profile. A named reviewer, review date, and scope should be recorded for the specific content reviewed; ownership or a site-wide byline is not evidence of review of every page.

CADC-II is a substance use counseling certification, not a physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, or independent mental health license. Source checking and software tests do not replace topic-qualified clinical review. The September 5 editorial corrections do not claim a new clinical review or independent credential verification.

What MindCheck Tools is not

  • It is not a diagnostic service. A score on a screener is a starting point for a conversation with a qualified clinician, not a diagnosis.
  • It is not a substitute for a clinical evaluation, a therapy session, a medication consultation, or a treatment plan.
  • It is not a crisis service. If you or someone near you is in immediate danger, contact emergency services, or use the crisis lines listed at the top of this page and on every screener page.
  • It is not a covered medical service for billing or insurance purposes.

Updates and corrections

When a screening instrument is revised by its authors, when new validation evidence is published, or when a citation is found to be inaccurate, the corresponding tool page and the clinical evidence page are updated and the "last updated" date is reset. To report an error, use the contact page.

See also