In the context of the development of prototypic assessment instruments in the areas of cognition, personality, and adaptive functioning, the issues of standardization, norming procedures, and the important psychometrics of test reliability and validity are evaluated critically. Criteria, guidelines, and simple rules of thumb are provided to assist the clinician faced with the challenge of choosing an appropriate test instrument for a given psychological assessment. Clinicians are often faced with the critical challenge of choosing the most appropriate available test instrument for a given psychological assessment of a child, adolescent, or adult of a particular age, gender, and class of disability. It is the purpose of this report to provide some criteria, guidelines, or simple rules of thumb to aid in this complex scientific decision. As such, it draws upon my experience with issues of test development, standardization, norming procedures, and important psychometrics, namely, test reliability and validity. As I and my colleagues noted in an earlier publication, the major areas of psychological functioning, in the normal development of infants, children, adolescents, adults, and elderly people, include cognitive, academic, personality, and adaptive behaviors (Sparrow, Fletcher, & Cicchetti, 1985). As such, the major examples or applications discussed in this article derive primarily, although not exclusively, from these several areas of human functioning.

/pdf/guidelines-criteria-and-rules-of-thumb-for-evaluating-normed-ceb0hwge3w.pdf

Guidelines, Criteria, and Rules of Thumb for Evaluating Normed and Standardized Assessment Instruments in Psychology.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/5/110/206.full.pdf

The american psychological association.

BACKGROUND Mental disorders have a strong association with suicide. This meta-analysis, or statistical overview, of the literature gives an estimate of the suicide risk of the common mental disorders.

METHOD We searched the medical literature to find reports on the mortality of mental disorders. English language reports were located on MEDLINE (1966-1993) with the search terms mental disorders', 'brain injury', 'eating disorders', 'epilepsy', 'suicide attempt', 'psychosurgery', with 'mortality' and 'follow-up studies', and from the reference lists of these reports. We abstracted 249 reports with two years or more follow-up and less than 10% loss of subjects, and compared observed numbers of suicides with those expected. A standardised mortality ratio (SMR) was calculated for each disorder.

RESULTS Of 44 disorders considered, 36 have a significantly raised SMR for suicide, five have a raised SMR which fails to reach significance, one SMR is not raised and for two entries the SMR could not be calculated.

CONCLUSIONS If these results can be generalised then virtually all mental disorders have an increased risk of suicide excepting mental retardation and dementia. The suicide risk is highest for functional and lowest for organic disorders with substance misuse disorders lying between. However, within these broad groupings the suicide risk varies widely.

Suicide as an outcome for mental disorders. A meta-analysis.

High agreement but low kappa: I. The problems of two paradoxes.

BACKGROUND We describe the increased risk of premature death from natural and from unnatural causes for the common mental disorders.

METHOD With a Medline search (1966-1995) we found 152 English language reports on the mortality of mental disorder which met our inclusion criteria. From these reports, covering 27 mental disorder categories and eight treatment categories, we calculated standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all causes of death, all natural causes and all unnatural causes; and for most, SMRs for suicide, other violent causes and specific natural causes.

RESULTS Highest risks of premature death, from both natural and unnatural causes, are for substance abuse and eating disorders. Risk of death from unnatural causes is especially high for the functional disorders, particularly schizophrenia and major depression. Deaths from natural causes are markedly increased for organic mental disorders, mental retardation and epilepsy.

CONCLUSION All mental disorders have an increased risk of premature death.

Excess mortality of mental disorder.

• The existing literature on the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis falls into two periods, the earlier reporting low reliability and the latter reporting much higher figures. The reasons for this trend are examined in the context of a discussion of the design of diagnostic reliability studies. The problems of research design and execution in studies of diagnostic reliability are reviewed, and statistical problems are examined. Solutions to many of these problems are suggested, including recommendations of appropriate reliability coefficients and data analyses.

Reliability studies of psychiatric diagnosis. Theory and practice.

The clinical course and outcome of anorexia nervosa are presented in a 10-year follow-up study of 76 severely ill females with anorexia nervosa who met specific diagnostic criteria and had participated in a well-documented hospital treatment study. Information was obtained on 100% of the subjects. A comprehensive assessment was made in 93% of the living subjects in specific categories of weight, eating and weight control behaviours, menstrual function, anorexic attitudes, and psychological, sexual, social and vocational adjustment. Five subjects had died, which gives a crude mortality rate of 6.6%. Standardized mortality rates demonstrated an almost 13-fold increase in mortality in the anorexia nervosa subjects. Only eighteen (23.7%) were fully recovered. Sixty-four per cent developed binge-eating at some time during their illness, 57% at least weekly. Twenty-nine (41%) were still bulimic at follow-up. The high frequency and chronicity of the bulimic symptoms plus the high rate of weight relapse (42% during the first year after hospital treatment) suggest that intensive intervention is needed to help anorexics restore and maintain their weight within a normal range and to decrease abnormal eating and weight control behaviours.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033291700028166

Ten-year follow-up of anorexia nervosa: clinical course and outcome

Heritability of Substance Abuse and Antisocial Behavior: A Study of Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart

Cluster Analysis for Social Scientists

A temporal stability study (where independent diagnostic interviews are conducted at widely separated time points) is discussed and compared to a test/retest reliability study. We introduce a new battery of statistics, based on the sensitivity, specificity, and true base rate of a disorder, that quantifies either reliability or stability over time, and provide a table that relates these underlying parameters to the opening characteristics of the battery. We analyze data on 50 relatives who participated in the family study component of the National Institute of Mental Health's collaborative "Psychobiology Depression Program." The subjects received an interview 5 years after their initial evaluation by raters without knowledge of the initial assessment. The stability of mania, hypomania, major depression, and alcoholism is considered. Although the kappa coefficient for hypomania was small (0.09), all diagnoses of hypomania in the relatives occurred in the families of bipolar probands, suggesting that the low value of kappa is due to a low sensitivity rather than to a low specificity. This is compatible with earlier findings and demonstrates the value of multiple independent assessments when studying this disorder.

William M. Grove

Papers

Reliability studies of psychiatric diagnosis. Theory and practice.

Ten-year follow-up of anorexia nervosa: clinical course and outcome

Heritability of Substance Abuse and Antisocial Behavior: A Study of Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart

Cluster Analysis for Social Scientists

The stability of diagnosis with an application to bipolar II disorder