Skip to contents

Standardizes column names in CAPS-5 (Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5) data by renaming them to a consistent format (symptom_1 through symptom_20). This standardization allows CAPS-5 data to be used with the same downstream functions as PCL-5 data (e.g., create_caps5_diagnosis, apply_symptom_combinations).

Usage

rename_caps5_columns(data, id_col = NULL)

Arguments

data

A dataframe containing exactly 20 columns of CAPS-5 item severity ratings (plus any columns named in id_col for carry-through). Scores are on a 0–4 scale where:

  • 0 = Absent

  • 1 = Mild / subthreshold

  • 2 = Moderate / threshold (counts toward diagnosis)

  • 3 = Severe / markedly elevated

  • 4 = Extreme / incapacitating

id_col

Optional character vector naming column(s) in data to preserve as identifiers. These columns propagate through the workflow and can be used to merge per-row diagnoses back to the original dataframe. Defaults to NULL.

Value

A dataframe with CAPS-5 columns renamed to symptom_1 through symptom_20. If id_col is supplied, the named columns are prepended (in original order).

Details

The function assumes the input data contains exactly 20 columns corresponding to the 20 CAPS-5 items. Each item is a single severity rating (0–4) assigned by the clinician, who combines information about frequency and intensity into that score. The columns are renamed sequentially from symptom_1 to symptom_20, maintaining their original order.

The CAPS-5 items map to the same DSM-5 PTSD symptom clusters as the PCL-5:

  • symptom_1 to symptom_5: Intrusion symptoms (Criterion B)

  • symptom_6 to symptom_7: Avoidance symptoms (Criterion C)

  • symptom_8 to symptom_14: Negative alterations in cognitions and mood (Criterion D)

  • symptom_15 to symptom_20: Alterations in arousal and reactivity (Criterion E)

The output naming (symptom_1:symptom_20) is intentionally identical to the PCL-5 convention so that downstream functions such as apply_symptom_combinations and compare_diagnostic_systems work transparently on CAPS-5 data.

See also

rename_ptsd_columns for the PCL-5 equivalent.

create_caps5_diagnosis for computing a CAPS-5 DSM-5 diagnosis from the renamed data.

Examples

# Example with simulated CAPS-5 data
caps5_data <- data.frame(
  matrix(sample(0:4, 20 * 10, replace = TRUE),
         nrow = 10,
         ncol = 20)
)
renamed_caps5 <- rename_caps5_columns(caps5_data)
colnames(renamed_caps5)  # symptom_1 through symptom_20
#>  [1] "symptom_1"  "symptom_2"  "symptom_3"  "symptom_4"  "symptom_5" 
#>  [6] "symptom_6"  "symptom_7"  "symptom_8"  "symptom_9"  "symptom_10"
#> [11] "symptom_11" "symptom_12" "symptom_13" "symptom_14" "symptom_15"
#> [16] "symptom_16" "symptom_17" "symptom_18" "symptom_19" "symptom_20"