Of the most commonly used measures, the majority lacked sufficient evidence to warrant their use with older adults. Based on psychometric evidence, three measures (Beck Anxiety Inventory, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and Geriatric Mental Status Examination) showed psychometric properties sufficient to justify the use of these instruments when assessing anxiety in older adults. In addition, two measures developed specifically for older adults (Worry Scale and Geriatric Anxiety Inventory) were also found to be appropriate for use with older adults.
We provide a narrative review of the extensive evidence that supports the efficacy and effectiveness of psychological treatments, across the life span, for common mental health disorders. To this end, relying primarily on meta-analytic studies, we examine the effects of psychological treatments for depression, bipolar disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Based upon data from hundreds of studies and thousands of participants, there is substantial evidence for both the efficacy and effectiveness of specific forms of psychological intervention for these disorders. Moreover, for most disorders, the clinical impact of specific forms of psychological treatment has been found to be at least equal to that of medication. Accordingly, the research evidence strongly supports the use of a number of specific psychological treatments, most of which are cognitive-behavioural treatments, as first-line interventions for these commonly occurring mental disorders among youth, adults, and older adults.
As part of the evidence‐based practice movement, a noticeable shift has occurred in the psychological assessment literature, with greater attention focused on the ways in which assessments are conducted and used to guide practice. This advance has also led to the development of evidence‐based assessment, an approach to clinical evaluation that emphasizes the use of research and theory to guide the selection of constructs, the methods and measures used in the assessment, and the interpretation of the resulting assessment data. This entry reviews the current state of evidence‐based assessment efforts and the scientific and logistic challenges that will need to be addressed in order to facilitate the identification and dissemination of evidence‐based assessment practices.
A systematic review of the anxiety measures most commonly used with older adults found that most are developed for a younger population and lacked sufficient evidence of their psychometric properties when used with an older population. As researchers and clinicians need a fast way to judge whether a measure is appropriate when faced with daily assessment tasks, recent efforts have been made in developing guidelines to operationalize the criteria necessary to designate a measure as evidence-based. The goal of this study is to: (a) apply the reliability criteria for two existing evidence based assessment categorization systems to the most commonly used anxiety measures with older adults and (b) compare the results of these categorization systems to the results obtained in a previous reliability generalization study that gave the mean reliability of each measure. We discuss the strengths and limitations of both approaches and suggest how researchers and clinicians can identify psychometrically sound measures without having to conduct more labour-intensive meta-analysis studies.
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