Development and Evaluation of the Telephone Crisis Support Skills Scale.

Background: Although telephone services continue to play an important role in the delivery of front-line crisis support, published evidence of the standardized assessment of such services does not exist to date.

Aims: To describe the development of the Telephone Crisis Support Skills Scale (TCSSS), an instrument to assess workers' intentions to use recommended skills with callers, and to evaluate its factor structure and reliability.

Method: TCSSS items were mapped to a national telephone crisis support practice model.