Module 2 Flashcards
What are the three main stages of the assessment process?
1) Information input - collecting info from sources, address the referral question, formulate assessment goals and working hypotheses
2) Information evaluation - interpretation and integration of assessment data
3) Information output - biopsychosocial formulation, conclusions and recommendations
Sellbom et al: What are the two founding premises of psychological assessment?
Assessments must be evidence-based and multimodal
Sellbom et al: What does multimodal mean?
A multimodal approach means to corroborate a range of different sources to best understand the client. Eg: client’s history, structured interview, self report inventories, and clinical impression.
Sellbom et al: What are the benefits of a multimodal approach?
Increases reliability of info
Draws on the strengths of each test while reducing the limitations of each one
Minimises bias associated with particular measures
Leads to a more confident diagnosis
When various tests are inconsistent, this can reveal important info about the test-taker
Sellbom et al: What are some of the limitations of the DSM-IV-TR?
1) It is based on a medical model and does not consider underlying processes or liabilities (ie it is concerned only with the signs and associations of the disorder
2) It is categorical in nature, even though human nature, mental illness, and mental health are distributed dimensionally
3) It does not address etiological contributions to disorders
4) Axis I and II represent a consensual opinion of a committee of experts not extensive empirical evidence
5) It is skewed towards the nomothetic end of the spectrum
6) It requires a specific number of symptoms to achieve a diagnosis, ruling out people with subthreshold symptoms regardless of their level of impairment
Sellbom et al: What were the two major shifts/advances made going into DSM-V?
1) A cross-cutting assessment domain - eg: measuring depressed mood, anxiety, substance use or sleep problems for all patients in a mental health centre
2) Moving away from the 10 diagnostic categories of personality disorders and instead having 6 broad personality trait domains onto which people can be mapped
Sellbom et al: What are the 4 types of assessment instruments discussed in this article?
1) Interviews
2) Self-report inventories
3) Performance-based techniques
4) Cognitive testing
Sellbom et al: What are the 4 major considerations when deciding which tests to use?
1) The test’s psychometric properties
2) Clinical utility
3) Client factors
4) Clinician variables (eg: clinical expertise)
Sellbom et al: With regards to psychological assessments, what is incremental validity?
Incremental validity is the extent to which a new assessment/test provides information over and above that of the assessments/tests already used. If you choose to use an additional number of tests, each needs to bring something new to the table
Sellbom et al: What are the 3 levels of interpretation of psychological tests?
Level 1: Concrete level, recognise scores only, don’t draw any conclusions
Level 2: What are the patterns in the scores? Are there significant differences?
Level 3: Interpret the scores in the larger context, incorporate details specific to the client
Sellbom et al: What are the 4 stages of the assessment procedure?
1) Referral question
2) Preliminary information
3) Assessment procedure
4) Treatment recommendations
Sellbom et al: In terms of the assessment procedure, what 6 areas need to be explored?
1) Informed consent
2) Presenting problems and symptoms
3) Psychosocial background history
4) Clinical interview
5) Diagnostic clarification
6) Personality profile, coping, self-concept, and interpersonal styles
Sellbom et al: What are some potential issues specific to the assessment process?
1) Time constraints
2) Severity of psychopathology may affect self-reports
3) Comorbidity
4) Risk of harm to self or others
5) Environmental influence
Sellbom et al: Define formulation
“The process by which we systematically, comprehensibly, and objectively assemble and integrate available information to arrive at an understanding of what is happening with the patient.”
What is face validity? Provide an example. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Face validity refers to what a test/item appears to be measuring.
For example, the item “I think newborn babies look very much like little monkeys” measures one’s tendency to care for others. It has low face validity.
Low face validity can be advantageous, as it reduces personal bias (i.e. in example above, people will be motivated to show they’re caring, so this low face validity question removes this bias). A disadvantage of low face validity is that is makes what is being measured questionable
What is content validity?
Content validity refers to whether the items on a test represent the domain the test aims to measure.
It depends on how the developers of the test defined the domain - what they called “apple” might not be what you now call “apple”. You have to go beyond just looking at the title of the scale.
