Chapter 3 Flashcards
assessment
An assessment is a procedure
through which information is gathered systematically in the evaluation of a condition; this assessment procedure yields information that serves as the basis for a diagnosis.
- A mental health assessment may include interviews with the patient
or the patient’s family, medical testing, psychophysiological or psychological testing, and the completion of self-report scales or other report rating scales
diagnostic systems
A diagnostic system provides a number of criteria for a disorder. If a certain number of these criteria or indications are present, the person is diagnosed as having that particular disorder
reliability
must give the same measurement for a
given thing every time
- needed for a useful diagnostic system
Inter-rater reliability
refers to the extent to which two clinicians agree on the diagnosis of
a particular patient
validity
validity is determined by whether a diagnostic category is able to predict behavioural and psychiatric disorders accurately
Concurrent validity
the ability of a diagnostic category to estimate an individual’s present standing on factors related to the disorder but not themselves part of the
diagnostic criteria
eg. For example, although significant academic underachievement and a downward drift in socioeconomic status are not diagnostic items for schizophrenia, they are clearly found in most people with schizophrenia.
If an assessment of siblings without schizophrenia of people diagnosed with schizophrenia revealed that they had better education and higher income, this would be an indication of
concurrent validity
predictive validity
the ability of a test to predict the
future course of an individual’s development.
atheoretical
that is, they (DSM) moved away from
endorsing any one theory of abnormal psychology, becoming more pragmatic as they moved to more precise behavioural descriptions
polythetic
meaning that an individual could be diagnosed with a certain subset of symptoms without having to meet all criteria. It also introduced a multiaxial requirement
Neurodevelopmental disorders
- attention deficit hyperactive disorder - maladaptive levels of inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity, or a combination of these
- intellectual disability - deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning with impairments in social adjustment, identified at an early age
- autism spectrum disorder - in
which the child shows severe impediments in several areas
of development, including social interactions and communication - learning disorder - in which the person’s functioning in particular academic skill areas is significantly below what is expected based on his or her intelligence
- communications disorder - in which the individual experiences significant difficulty with the reception, expression, or social use of language
- motor skills disorder - the individual
experiences developmental problems with coordination and which include the tic disorders, in which the body moves
repeatedly, quickly, suddenly, and/or uncontrollably
Scizophrenia (psychotic disorder)
marked by severe debilitation in thinking and perception. People with schizophrenia suffer from a state of psychosis, often characterized by delusions (false beliefs, such as believing that people are trying to hurt
them when there is no evidence of this) and hallucinations (false perceptions, such as hearing voices that comment on ongoing activity)
major depressive disorder (mood disorder)
characterized by the occurrence of depressive mood episodes in which a person is extremely sad and discouraged, and displays a marked loss of pleasure in usual activities
people with clinical depression can:
- have severe problems sleeping
- experiencing weight loss or gain
- lack energy to do things
- difficulty concentrating
- feeling worthless, hopeless and suicidal
thought disorder (psychotic disorder)
demonstrated by incoherent speech, loose associations (unconnected pieces of thought), inappropriate affect (such as smiling and laughing while watching an upsetting or violent scene in a movie), and disorganized behaviour (such as public masturbation).
Mania (mood disorder) (mood episode)
in which a person is extremely elated,
more active, and in less need of sleep, and displays flights of somewhat disconnected ideas, grandiosity (an illusion of personal importance), and impairment in functioning
bipolar disorders
mania, and often depression, is exhibited. Moreover, severity of mood disorders can vary. Less severe variants of these mood disorders include Persistent Depressive Disorder (or dysthymia), which is a more chronic low-grade depression, and cyclothymia, in which the person fluctuates between more mild bouts of mania and less severe depressive symptoms
Anxiety
Individuals who suffer from an anxiety disorder experience excessive fear, worry, or apprehension; the excessive fear usually produces a maladaptive pattern of avoidance
phobia
A person can have an intense fear
of a specific object or situation, which is referred to as a phobia. . Some individuals have an extreme fear of social situations (social phobia); experience panic attacks and fear that they will go crazy, have a heart attack, or die (panic disorder); or have difficulty controlling excessive worry (generalized anxiety disorder).
