Assessment practices of professional psychologists: Results of a national survey.

Abstract

Psychological assessment has been a defining area of practice, training, and research for professional psychologists since the field's inception. We conducted the present survey of professional psychologists as a follow-up to surveys conducted by the American Psychological Association in the 1990s to describe (a) current psychological assessment practices and trends; (b) demographic factors and beliefs associated with assessment use; (c) barriers discouraging assessment use; and (d) factors that may encourage psychologists to make assessments a larger part of their practices. Our survey supports the common perception that, in general, assessment represents a smaller part of the practices of professional psychologists than before managed care; however, for psychologists in some specialty areas and settings (e.g., forensic psychology, inpatient settings), assessment represents a significant portion of their work. Moreover, the large majority of psychologists believe psychological assessment is a valuable aid in making diagnostic decisions and treatment recommendations. Many psychologists identify that greater coverage by third-party payers, as well as having access to less costly assessment instruments, would enable greater use of assessment.

The status of the Beck inventories (BDI, BAI) in psychology training and practice: A major shift in clinical acceptance

“…The current analysis clearly indicates that the BDI/BAI tend to be part of the assessment armamentarium of clinical psychologists, professional counselors, and to some extent by social workers. In fact, very recent survey data indicate that professional acceptance of the Beck inventories is on the increase (see Wright et al., ). At the same time, this popularity of the BDI/BAI has been reflected in the clinical curriculum of both professional psychology training programs and internship settings in recent years (Bates, ; Mihura, Roy, & Graceffo, ; Ready, Santorelli, Lundquist, & Romano, ).…”

“…Historically, the assessment of depression and anxiety states has garnered a central role in evaluation of mental health (Brantley, Dutton, & Wood, ; Cusin, Yang, Yeung, & Fava, ; IsHak, Burt, & Sederer, ; Piotrowski, ; Wright et al., ). Prominent among diagnostic instruments is the long‐standing Beck Depression Inventory (BDI/BDI II; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, ; Beck & Steer, ) , and the more recent Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, ).…”

Doing justice to the richness of personality: Introduction to the special issue “New Approaches to the Measurement of Personality: Translational Thoughts to Applied, Educational, and Clinical Settings”.

“…From an overarching applied perspective, the most tempting objective of the current special issue was to translate the empirical insights into their clinical or applied value, in a way that may persuade psychological assessment training programs to also incorporate contemporary methods and perspectives described in the scientific literature of psychological assessment. A recent survey in this regard (Mihura, Roy, & Graceffo, 2016) has for example shown that notwithstanding the increasing emphasis on personality tests in clinical psychology doctoral programs, almost all practice-focused programs continue to focus on relatively old and mainly self-report based assessment technology, despite the availability of newer evidence-based methods that more squarely reflect modern evidence-RUNNING HEAD: INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE based conceptualizations of personality and psychopathology. This finding clearly suggests that researchers should try harder to translate their empirical findings into practical and accessible guidelines for clinicians.…”

Internal Consistency and Convergent Validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory English and European-Spanish Version with English/Spanish Bilinguals

“…The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991–2007) is a popular personality assessment among U.S. practitioners (Wright et al, 2017). Collectively, its 22 scales are meant to assess a broad range of characteristics.…”