What is the purpose of clinical assessment?
A collection of relevant information to reach a conclusion as to why a person is behaving in a dysfunctional matter
It helps determine whether, how, and why a person is behaving dysfunctionally.
What are the three categories of clinical assessment tools?
Clinical interview
Clinical tests
Clinical observations
These tools help gather information about a client’s psychological state.
What are the characteristics of assessment tools?
Useful assessment tools must be standardized and have clear reliability and validity
What does standardization in assessment tools involve?
Setting up common steps to be followed whenever it is administered (administration, scoring, interpretation)
This includes administration, scoring, and interpretation.
Define reliability in the context of assessment tools.
Consistency of an assessment measure (same results in same situation)
A good tool yields the same results in the same situation.
What are the two main types of reliability?
Test retest reliability
Interrater (interjudge) reliability
These types ensure that assessments produce consistent results.
What is validity in assessment tools?
The accuracy of a tool’s results, must measure what it’s supposed to measure
An assessment tool must accurately measure what it is supposed to measure.
List the three specific types of validity.
Face Validity
Predictive Validity
Concurrent validity
Each type assesses different aspects of an assessment tool’s accuracy.
What is the purpose of a clinical interview?
Collect detailed information about the person’s difficulties and feelings, lifestyle and relationships and other personal history (mental status exam)
It often serves as the first contact between client and clinician.
What’s an unstructured interview?
Primarily open ended questions
What’s a structured interview?
Primarily specific questions
What are the limitations of clinical interviews?
Some researchers believe interviewing should be discarded as a tool of clinical assessment.
What are clinical tests?
Test that is used to gather information about psychological functioning, from which broader information is concluded
What are the most often used clinical tests?
What are projective tests?
They are often used in psychodynamic assessments.
What is the projective Rorschach test?
Special attention is paid to themes and images noted and style of responses.
What is the projective Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT) of the Pictorial projective test?
Stories reflect the client’s own circumstances, needs, and emotions.
What is the projective sentence-completion test?
What is a projective drawing test?
What are the strengths of projective tests?
They were widely used until the 1950s.
What are the limitations of projective tests?
These issues limit their effectiveness in assessments.
What are personality inventories?
What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?
It includes versions for adults (MMPI, MMPI-2, MMPI-3) and adolescents (MMPI-A).
What are the scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?