Chapter 4 (diagnosis, assessment, and study of mental disorders) Flashcards
(41 cards)
Dimensional approach
-refers to defining abnormal behaivor on a continuum or spectrum
Abnormal behaivor consists of
- Emotional states
- Cognitive styles
- Physical behaivor
Categorical approach
One either has or doesn’t have a mental disorder
Diagnosis
Defined by rules how many and what features of a mental disorder must be present
General features of mental disorder according to DSM
- A group of emotional, cognitive, or behaivoral symptoms called a syndrom that occur within a person
- these symptoms are usually associated with emotional distress or disability(impairment) in life activities
- the syndrom is not simply expected or culturally approved response to a specific event, such as grief and sadness followed by death of a loved one
- The symptoms are considered to reflect dysfunction in psychological, biological, or developmental processes
Classification
Refers to arranging mental disorders into broad catagories or classes based on similar features
Clinical assessment
Involves evaluating a person’s strengths and weaknesses and understanding the problem at hand to develop a treatment
Reliability
The consistency of scores or responses
Test-retest reliability
The extent to which a person provides similar answers to the same questions across time
Interrater reliability
Agreement between 2+ rafters or judges about the level of a trait or presence/absence or a feature or diagnosis
Internal consistency reliability
Relationship among test items that measure the same variable
Validity
The extent to which an assessment tequnique measures what it is suppose to measure
Content validity
How well test or interview items adequately measure various aspects of a variable, construct or diagnosis
Predictive validity
How well test scores or diagnoses predict and correlate with the behaivor or test scores that are observed or obtained at some future point
Concurrent validity
How well test scores or diagnoses correlate with a related but independent set of test scores or behaivor
Construct validity
How well test scores or diagnoses correlate with other measures or behaivors in a logical and theoretically consistent way
Standardization
Administering or conducting assent measures int he same way for everyone
Unstructured interviews
Allow interviewer to ask questions that come to mind in any order
Structured interview
Require and interviewer to standardize questions in a specified sequence
Ex. SCID
Intelligence tests
Asses cognitive functioning and provide estimates for an individual’s intellectual ability
Ex. Weschler intelligent scale
Personality assessment
Refers to instruments that measure different traits or aspects of our character
Objective personality measures
Involve administering a standard set of questions or statements to which the person responds using set options
Ex. Beck depression inventory
MMPI-2 validity scales
Used to detect people who are trying to look a certain way or who are defensive or careless when taking a test
MMPI-2 clinical scales
Can suggest certain diagnoses, and indicate various personality styles and problematic behaivors