In pursuit of empirically supported assessment for use in medical settings.

Abstract

Psychological assessment in the medical setting presents many opportunities and challenges. On the question of what constitutes empirically supported assessment practice, there are few clear answers and perhaps fewer exemplars. The goal of this article was not to review the current status of empirically supported assessment in medical settings, but rather to highlight some areas of measurement innovation that may move this field toward its promise of a more stable evidence base supporting the use of patient-reported outcome measures for clinical research, patient education, and clinical care. In addition, assessment in the medical setting provides one very unique opportunity that many psychologists are not honed in on: the use of psychological assessment to assess quality health care. This is an emerging reality that poses significant methodological puzzles and opens doors for those committed to psychological assessment.

Evidence‐based assessment in the 21st century: Comments on the special series papers.

“…Two general conclusions come from a big picture perspective. The psychometric advances advocated by Butt (2016) were clearly in line with this perspective. This creates a dilemma for practitioners dealing with categorical diagnostic schemes, as in principle, there is no valid way of determining where, on a dimensional psychopathology construct, people "have" or "do not have" a disorder.…”

“…However, it is important to recognize that (a) typically categories are less reliable and valid than dimensions (Markon, 2011) for most clinical predictions, and (b) diagnostic status based on a measure with an arbitrary cut score (such as a categorical diagnosis) is a rather weak criterion for clinical decision making or measure validation. The psychometric advances advocated by Butt (2016) were clearly in line with this perspective. In contrast, we saw the reliance on categorical variables as a primary weakness of the approach to EBA proposed by Youngstrom and Van Meter (2016).…”

“…Butt (2016) touched on this issue in the beginning of his article, but never elaborated. More specifically, what assessment frameworks already work for what purposes?…”

“…In general, we found the introduction helpful and the context-specific and practical issues discussed interesting and thoughtful. Butt (2016) clearly discusses several innovative issues, including PROMs, alignment with FDA guidelines, IRT-based methods, and real-time assessment. PROMs seem like a promising way for the efficient collection of data from patients, both for research and clinical purposes.…”

Assessment in health psychology: Introduction to the special issue.

“…The articles in this special issue represent both the depth and breadth of the opportunities that exist for psychological assessment in the health setting. While there are countless patient-centered measures currently in use to measure health and health outcomes, the evidence base for their use can be quite variable (Butt, 2016). Our hope is that future issues of Psychological Assessment will highlight more work in this area, including (but not limited to) development of patient-reported outcomes, integration of patient-reported outcomes into health care practice (e.g., for patient education, clinical care, and/or grading the quality of medical care), assessment strategies for health promotion, use of clinical assessment to guide health care decision making, measurement of health disparities, and strategies for minimizing or addressing missing assessment data in health care registries.…”