PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Assessment tool or scale

How to Cite an Assessment Scale in APA 7

To cite an assessment scale like the Braden Scale, the PHQ-9, or the Morse Fall Scale in APA 7, cite the published source the scale comes from, which is usually the journal article that introduced it: the authors, the year, the article title in sentence case, the journal and volume in italics, the issue, the pages, and the DOI. The in-text citation is the developers' names and that year: (Bergstrom et al., 1987). If you used the scale's record in a test database like APA PsycTests instead, cite the record: the authors, the year, the scale's name in italics, [Database record], APA PsycTests, and the DOI.

The format

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article that introduced the scale. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxx

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Paste the DOI or PubMed ID of the article that introduced the scale into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA finds the article and fills in every author, the year, the title, the journal, the volume, the issue, the pages, and the DOI. Check the title and the pages before you add it. The scale's name is a proper noun, so it keeps its capitals, as in The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk, and the page range should read like 205–210, with no stray characters.

Citing the scale's record in APA PsycTests? Add it by hand so it gets the [Database record] label. Choose Tests, Scales, & Inventories, then A record in a test database. Add each author, then fill in Database Record Name (the scale's name in title case, with its abbreviation in parentheses), Publication Year, Database Name (APA PsycTests), and the URL. Paste the full https://doi.org/ link in the URL box. Leave Database Record Number blank: PsycTests records are identified by their DOI.

Using the scale's manual instead? Pick Manual for a test, scale, or inventory in the same type.

Look up
Paste a DOI, get the reference

10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x

Bergstrom, N., Braden, B. J., Laguzza, A., & Holman, V. (1987). The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk. Nursing Research, 36(4), 205–210. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-198707000-00002

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Which source you cite

A scale isn't usually cited on its own. Cite the published source it comes from: the journal article where the developers introduced and tested it, or the scale's manual if it has one. That's the source your reader can find, and it's what APA asks for when supporting literature exists.

The Braden Scale: Bergstrom, Braden, Laguzza, and Holman's 1987 article in Nursing Research.

Cite a test database record, like an APA PsycTests entry, only when you used the record itself: its description, its scoring notes, or its development history. A copy on your clinical unit, in the electronic health record, or on a hospital website is not the source. Trace it back to the article.

2. Authors

The authors are the scale's developers, written as last name, comma, initials. Separate them with commas and put an ampersand (&) before the last one. List every author, up to 20.

Bergstrom, N., Braden, B. J., Laguzza, A., & Holman, V.

The scale's name isn't always the author's name. The Braden Scale is named for Barbara Braden, but Nancy Bergstrom is the first author of the article, so the citation is (Bergstrom et al., 1987), not (Braden, 1987).

3. Year

Use the year of the source you cite, in parentheses, followed by a period. Not the year your unit adopted the scale, and not the year you used it.

(1987).

One scale can have two years. APA PsycTests dates the PHQ-9 to 1999, and the article that validated it came out in 2001. Use whichever year belongs to the source on your references page.

4. Title

For an article, write the title in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. The scale's name is a proper noun, so it keeps its capitals even in sentence case.

The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk.

Development of a scale to identify the fall-prone patient.

In the second title, "a scale" is a general description, not the scale's name, so it stays lowercase.

5. Journal, volume, issue, and pages

Write the journal name in title case and in italics, as the journal writes it, then the volume in italics, the issue in parentheses without italics, and the page range with an en dash.

Nursing Research, 36(4), 205–210.

6. DOI

End with the DOI as a link, with no period after it. Older nursing articles often have DOIs added later by the publisher, so check the article page even for a 1980s scale.

https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-198707000-00002

No DOI, and you found the article in a database like CINAHL? End the reference after the page range.

7. A database record instead

For a record in APA PsycTests, the title is the scale's name in title case and in italics, with its abbreviation in parentheses if the record shows one. Then comes [Database record], the database name, and the record's DOI.

Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) [Database record]. APA PsycTests. https://doi.org/10.1037/t06165-000

The APA manual's example calls the database PsycTESTS. Its current name is APA PsycTests, which is what the record page shows today. Use the name the record shows.

Examples

The Braden Scale: cite the 1987 article

The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk was introduced in Nursing Research in 1987. Four authors, so the in-text citation uses the first author and et al. The scale's name keeps its capitals in the title.

  • Parenthetical citation(Bergstrom et al., 1987)
  • Narrative citationBergstrom et al. (1987)

The PHQ-9: cite the validation article

The PHQ-9 depression measure, validated by Kroenke, Spitzer, and Williams in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in 2001. This is the source most nursing and medical papers cite for the PHQ-9.

  • Parenthetical citation(Kroenke et al., 2001)
  • Narrative citationKroenke et al. (2001)

The Morse Fall Scale: cite the 1989 article

Janice Morse and colleagues introduced the Morse Fall Scale in the Canadian Journal on Aging in 1989. The journal publishes under a bilingual name, and the reference gives it the way the journal prints it.

  • Parenthetical citation(Morse et al., 1989)
  • Narrative citationMorse et al. (1989)

The PHQ-9 as an APA PsycTests database record

If you used the PHQ-9's entry in APA PsycTests, the database's description of the measure and its scoring, cite the record. It gets [Database record], the database name, and the record's own DOI, and PsycTests dates it 1999.

  • Parenthetical citation(Kroenke et al., 1999)
  • Narrative citationKroenke et al. (1999)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for a scale gives the authors of the source you cited and its year, the same as any article. Name the scale in your sentence so the reader knows which tool you mean.

  • Parenthetical: Pressure injury risk was scored with the Braden Scale (Bergstrom et al., 1987).
  • Narrative: Bergstrom et al. (1987) developed the Braden Scale to identify patients at risk for pressure injuries.
  • With an abbreviation: spell out the scale's name the first time and put the abbreviation with the citation, separated by a semicolon: the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001). After that, write PHQ-9.
  • A quote: add the page: (Morse et al., 1989, p. 370)

Write the scale's name in title case and in plain type in your paper, never italics: the Morse Fall Scale, the Braden Scale. Lowercase a general description that isn't the official name, like "a fall risk scale" or "the depression screen." A subscale takes capitals for its name but not for the word scale: the Braden Scale's Mobility subscale.

Common mistakes

  • (Braden Scale, n.d.)(Bergstrom et al., 1987)A copy of the scale on a hospital site or in your unit's charting system isn't the source, so don't cite the scale as an undated title. Cite the article that published it, so your reader can find the scale and the evidence behind it.
  • The braden scale for predicting pressure sore risk.The Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Sore Risk.Sentence case lowercases ordinary words, not names. The full name of a scale is a proper noun, so it keeps its capitals. Generators that lowercase everything after the first word get this one wrong.
  • Patients were screened with the Morse Fall Scale.Patients were screened with the Morse Fall Scale (Morse et al., 1989).Scale names go in title case but plain type in your paper. Italics are only for the title in a reference, and only for some kinds of sources.
  • (Braden, 1987)(Bergstrom et al., 1987)Cite the article's first author, not the person the scale is named for. Barbara Braden is the second of four authors on the 1987 article.
  • Patient health questionnaire-9 [Data set]. American Psychological Association.Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) [Database record]. APA PsycTests.A PsycTests entry is a database record, not a data set. Its title keeps the scale's capitals, and the source is the database, APA PsycTests, not the publisher.

Quick checklist

  • The article or manual the scale comes from, not a hospital or charting-system copy
  • The article's authors, first author first, even if the scale has someone else's name
  • The year of the source you cite
  • The scale's name keeps its capitals inside a sentence-case title
  • Scale names in plain type and title case in your paper, abbreviation defined once
  • For a PsycTests record: [Database record], APA PsycTests, and the record's DOI

Questions students ask

Do I cite the Braden Scale or the article?

The article. The Braden Scale was published in Bergstrom, Braden, Laguzza, and Holman's 1987 article in Nursing Research, so that article goes on your references page, and you name the scale in your sentence. The same goes for the PHQ-9 and the Morse Fall Scale.

What year do I use for the PHQ-9?

The year of the source you cite. The 2001 validation article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine takes 2001. The APA PsycTests record dates the questionnaire to 1999, so a citation of the record takes 1999. Don't mix them: the year in your citation must match the reference.

I found the scale in my nursing textbook. What do I cite?

If you only read about the scale in the textbook, cite the textbook. You can still name the scale and its developers in your sentence, and APA lets you mark the original as a secondary source with "as cited in" plus the textbook's authors and year. Better still, find the original article, which is usually one DOI away, and cite it directly.

Do I italicize the name of a scale?

Not in your paper. Write it in title case and plain type: the Morse Fall Scale. The scale's name is italic only when it's the title in a reference, as with a PsycTests record or a manual.

Can I put a copy of the scale in my paper?

Most published scales are copyrighted. If you reproduce one in a figure, table, or appendix, add a copyright note that credits the source, and check whether the copyright holder requires permission. Describing the scale's items in your own words with a citation needs no permission.

How do I cite a version of a scale, like a pediatric or translated one?

Cite the source for the version you used. A pediatric adaptation or a translation is usually published in its own article or has its own PsycTests record, with its own authors and year. Name the version in your sentence so the reader knows which one you used.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 6.18, 6.25, 8.6, 8.17, 9.8, 9.25–9.37, 10.1, and 10.11 (Examples 81–83), and Chapter 12 on copyright attribution. The Braden Scale and Morse Fall Scale articles were verified on the publishers' pages and their DOIs, the PHQ-9 article on PubMed and its DOI, and the PHQ-9 record on its APA PsycNet page.

PERRLA builds the scale's source article from its DOI and keeps the scale's name capitalized the APA way.

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