The abbreviated Life Skills Profile (LSP-16) contains 16 items which provide a key measure of function and disability in people with mental illness. The focus of LSP-16 is on the person's general functioning, i.e. how the person functions in terms of their social relationships, ability to do day-to-day tasks etc. Each of the 16 items is scored on a 4-point scale of 0 to 3. Lower scores indicate a higher level of functioning.

The 16 items are in the form of questions:

1 Does this person generally have any difficulty with initiating and responding to conversation?

2 Does this person generally withdraw from social contact?

3 Does this person generally show warmth to others?

4 Is this person generally well groomed (e.g., neatly dressed, hair combed)? 

5 Does this person wear clean clothes generally, or ensure that they are cleaned if dirty?

6 Does this person generally neglect her or his physical health?

7 Is this person violent to others?

8 Does this person generally make and/or keep up friendships?

9 Does this person generally maintain an adequate diet?

10 Does this person generally look after and take her or his own prescribed medication (or attend for prescribed injections on time) without reminding?

11 Is this person willing to take psychiatric medication when prescribed by a doctor?

12 Does this person co-operate with health services (e.g., doctors and/or other health workers)? 

13 Does this person generally have problems (e.g., friction, avoidance) living with others in the household?

14 Does this person behave offensively (includes sexual behaviour)?

15 Does this person behave irresponsibly? 

16 What sort of work is this person generally capable of (even if unemployed, retired or doing unpaid domestic duties)? 

The original Life Skills Profile (LSP) was developed by a team of clinical researchers in Sydney (Rosen et al. 1989, Parker et al. 1991). It was designed to be a brief, specific and jargon-free scale to assess a consumer's abilities with respect to basic life skills.

Work undertaken as part of the Australian Mental Health Classification and Service Costs (MH-CASC) study saw the 39 items reduced to 16. This reduction in item number aimed to minimise the rating burden on clinicians when the measure is used in conjunction with the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS).