Chapter 4 Flashcards
What are the goals of psychological assessment?
- gather information
- evaluate thoughts, feelings, behaviour, etc.
- done for a specific purpose (e.g. diagnosis, goal setting, treatment planning)
What is a clinical formulation?
a theoretically-based explanation of the information obtained from a clinical assessment
What is a cultural formulation?
integration of cultural background and role of culture into explanation of a person’s disorder
What is a treatment plan?
- goals
- procedures
- schedule (time, place, duration)
What are some types of psychological test?
- intelligence
- personality
- neuropsychological
- symptom checklists
What makes a psychological test good?
- measures the aspect of interest (valid)
- measurements compared between people (standardized)
What are the approaches to psychological assessment?
- unstructured clinical judgement
- structured decision making
(a) actuarial approach
(b) structured clinical judgement
What are the two ways of choosing items when developing a test?
- logical (“rational”) item selection
- empirical item selection
What is logical item selection and how does it work?
- one way of choosing the tasks that will be added to a psychological test
- based on theory and review of research articles
- not optimized on a special sample
What is empirical item selection and how does it work?
- one way of choosing the tasks that will be added to a psychological test
- based on statistics
- yields an algorithm or equation
What are the two types of prediction used for combining the results of tests?
- clinical prediction - informal, intuition, subjective
- actuarial prediction - formal, algorithmic, objective
What are the pros and cons of unstructured clinical judgement?
Pros:
- flexible and non-resource intensive
- widely applicable and efficient
Cons:
- highly subjective and inconsistent
- questionably related to relevant outcomes
- not clear how psychologist makes his judgements
What are the pros and cons of actuarial prediction?
Pros:
- explicit, fixed rules
- supported by experimental results
- better inter-rater reliability
Cons:
- interpretation is difficult
- not always generalizable from the sample used to make it
- might not capture all data
What are the pros and cons of structured clinical judgement?
Pros:
- flexible
- widely applicable
- efficient
- SOME explicit rules
- supported by experimental results
- enhanced reliability and transparency
Cons:
- interpretation difficult
- might not actually predict outcomes
- not clear how psychologist makes his judgements
What are the three types of clinical interviews?
- unstructured
- semi-structured
- structured
Which things does a psychologist ask about during a clinical interview?
- history of the problem
- personal history
- family background
- culture
What are the goals of clinical interviews?
- build trust
- get information on specific themes
- be chosen based on aim of assessment (e.g. needs and strengths of the patient)
What is the mental status exam and what is it used for?
- most frequently used semi-structured interview
- used to check for serious problems with emotional, intellectual, and neurological functioning
What things does the mental status examination test?
- appearance
- behaviour
- mood
- speech
- thoughts
- perception
- cognition
- insight
What are the names of some examples of structured interviews?
General:
- SADS
- DIS
- SCID (DSM-5)
Specific:
- ADIS (anxiety disorders)
- PDE (personality disorders)
- EDE (eating disorders)
What is the most used structured interview, and why is it used?
- Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID)
- matches DSM-5 very well
What kinds of tests are part of biological assessments?
- physical examinations
(a) health issues
(b) medication
(c) reflexes
(d) senses - blood and urine tests
(a) thyroid
(b) electrolyte
(c) toxins (drugs, poisons) - brain imaging
(a) EEG
(b) CT
(c) MRI
(d) PET
(e) fMRI
How does EEG work, and what does it show?
- records electrical activity
- which changes in the brain because neurons works on electricity
- put electrodes on the head
- get a printout of waves on the computer
- different patterns of waves show different states in the brain
What can EEG be used for?
study sleep