Psy631 Psychological Assessment

1
Psy631Psychological Assessment

• William P. Wattles, Ph.D.

2
Psychological assessment

• Psychological assessment is a process that
  involves the integration of information from
  multiple sources, such as psychological tests,
  personal history, description of current symptoms
  and problems by either self or others, and
  collateral information.

3
Psychological testing

• the use of samples of behavior in order to infer
  generalizations about a given individual.

4
Issues in assessment

• Referral Question
• Who will read report
• Ethical guidelines
• Test bias
• Test selection
• Computer-assisted tests

5
Context of assessment

• Referral Setting plays key role type of
  assessment
• Many different settings

6
The Psychiatric Setting

• Psychiatrist as administrator (beyond diagnosis
  and treatment)
• Custody
• freedom of the patient
• safety of society
• Psychiatrist as therapist
• ward
• type of treatment

7
General Medical Setting

• As many as 2/3 of patients seen by physicians
  have primarily psychosocial difficulties

8
Somatization

• Somatization is one of the oldest of all known
  psychological diagnoses. The first reference to
  this kind of phenomena appears about 1900 B.C. in
  Egyptian documents,

9
Why somaticize?

• in our society, psychological diagnoses become
  curse words
• Pathological
• Neurotic

10
Somatization

• As we understand it today, somatization is a
  phenomena where a person becomes somatically
  preoccupied.

• Typically, there are underlying feelings of
  depression, anxiety or other feelings, which are
  not recognized or acknowledged by the person.

11
Somatization

• Instead, what the person may be aware of is all
  the physical correlates of these underlying
  difficulties.

• The very fact that psychological difficulties are
  seen as weaknesses, makes it shameful for a
  person to admit that he or she has such a problem

12
Somatization

• This lucidly written guide presents an innovative
  approach for treating somatization disorder and
  related problems, such as fibromyalgia, irritable
  bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

13
Somatization

• The causes of somatization that we are able to
  implicate are neither proximate nor somatic,
  seeming instead to be indirect and to reside in
  the patients mind or culture.

• Somatization appears to be universal.

14
DSM-IV

• Somatoform Disorders
• Physical symptoms that suggest a general medical
  condition and are not fully explained by a
  general medical condition.

15
Somatization Disorder

• A pattern of recurring, multiple, clinically
  significant somatic complaints, not fully
  explained by any known general medical condition.

16
Hypochondriasis

• Preoccupation with fears of having a serious
  disease based on a misinterpretation of one or
  more symptoms.

17
General Medical Setting

• Mental disorders in addition to physical
• Behavioral aspects of physical illness

18
General Medical Setting

• Most common psychological referrals
• emotional factors
• neuropsychological assessment
• How the person is functioning
• chronic pain
• chemical dependency

19
The Legal Context

• Variety of uses
• child custody
• competency
• juvenile commitment
• personal injury

20
The Legal Context

• We equivocate they decide
• Legal terms / everyday or psychological
  meanings
• May not understand the scientific method
• Competency
• Insanity
• Dangerousness

21
Dangerousness

• Problem area
• Low base rate
• High false positives
• Text err on the side of caution

22
Truth
Not Dangerous
Dangerous
Dangerous
Hit
Test
Correct Rejection
Not Dangerous
23
The Scientific Method

• Fixation of Belief Peirce
• Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from
  which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into
  the state of belief

24
(No Transcript)
25
Fixation of Belief

• Charles Saunders Peirce
• Method of Tenacity
• Method of Authority
• A priori
• Method of science

26
The Scientific Method

• empirical
• a. Relying on or derived from observation or
  experiment empirical results that supported the
  hypothesis.
• b. Verifiable or provable by means of observation
  or experiment empirical laws
• others can arrive at the same results.

27
Empirical Example
28
Child Custody

• Mental health of the parent
• quality of love between parent and child
• nature of parent-child relationship
• long-term effect of different decisions

29
Education Context

• Learning difficulties
• Measuring intellectual strengths
• Identifying intellectual problems
• Assessing behavioral difficulties
• estimating responsiveness to intervention

30
Psychological Clinic

• The decision maker
• appropriate for the setting?
• Which therapist or group?
• Best treatment

31
Ethics of Assessment

• http//www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html9
• Developing a professional relationship
• signed consent
• discussion of procedures
• discussion of results

32
Competence and Appropriate Use of Assessments and
Interventions

• Psychologists refrain from misuse of assessment
  techniques, interventions, results, and
  interpretations and take reasonable steps to
  prevent others from misusing the information
  these techniques provide.

33
Test Construction.

• Psychologists who develop and conduct research
  with tests and other assessment techniques use
  scientific procedures and current professional
  knowledge for test design, standardization,
  validation, reduction or elimination of bias, and
  recommendations for use.

34
Use of assessment

• familiar with the reliability, validation, and
  related standardization or outcome studies of,
  and proper applications
• recognize limits to the certainty with which
  diagnoses, judgments, or predictions can be made
  about individuals.

35
Interpreting Assessment Results

• They indicate any significant reservations they
  have about the accuracy or limitations of their
  interpretations.

36
Unqualified Persons.

• Psychologists do not promote the use of
  psychological assessment techniques by
  unqualified persons.

37
Obsolete Tests and Outdated Test Results

• Do not use old tests or old results

38
Test Scoring and Interpretation Services.

• Retain responsibility for reliability and
  validity as well as appropriate use of tests.

39
Explaining Assessment Results

• Psychologists ensure that an explanation of the
  results is provided using language that is
  reasonably understandable to the person assessed
  or to another legally authorized person on behalf
  of the client.

40
Maintaining Test Security.

• Psychologists make reasonable efforts to maintain
  the integrity and security of tests and other
  assessment techniques

41
Privacy

• Psychologists accord appropriate respect to the
  fundamental rights, dignity, and worth of all
  people.

42
Personnel Selection

• Lovell
• tests for hiring lack adequate validity.
• Do not serve the publics interest

43
Personnel Selection

• Text
• If a position requires careful screening may
  warrant careful testing.

44
Truth
Dishonest
Honest
Honest
Hit
MissType II error
Test
Correct Rejection
False Alarmtype I error
Dishonest
45
Bias in testing minority groups

• Does validity extend to minority groups?
• Adverse impact
• Must demonstrate utility of assessment
• Sensitivity to attitudes towards testing

46
Selecting psychological tests

• Referral question
• Practical considerations of time, cost and
  availability
• Practitioner training
• Short forms

47

• The End