Lecture #7: Assesment & Prediction

Assessment

Evaluation/estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone

Ex. Is someone fit to stand trial?

Prediction

estimating something specific will occur/be a consequence

Ec. Will someone violate parole?

Screening

Identifying if those experiencing clinical difficulties

Ex. The questionnaire you fill out at a doctors office

Diagnosis/case formation

Specification of DSM clinical diagnosis and conceptualization of clinical significant difficulties

Prognosis/Prediction

Estimation of likelihood of clinically significant difficulties

Treatment measurement/evaluation

Examines how well prevention/intervention is working

Methods of A&P

• Self-report

• interview

• observational

• biophysical

• archival

• performance-based

• combinations of above

Psychometric

A specific tool that is use to measure a psychological construct

Ex. a specific interview type

Psychometrics

Statistical characteristics of a measurement

Ex. Internal/external validity

Psychometrician

someone who administers psychological tests

AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test)

• Screener used to asses alcohol use that might not ift DSM

• Looks at current alcohol problems

• 0-40 scoring range

  • Cutoff value 8 for issues

Sensitivity

Ability for something to correctly Identify an issue

Ex. I have COVID, the test say I have COVID

Specificity

The ability for a tool to correctly Identify those who do no have an issue

Ex. I don’t have COVID, the test comes back negative

True Positive

I have covid, Tests says I have covid

False negative

I have COVID, the test says I don’t

False Positive

I don’t have COVID, the test says I have COVID

True Negative

I don’t have COVID, the test says I don’t

S&S rules of thumb

• Inverse relationship

• increased cutoff value is more conservative

  • increases specificity

• Decreased cutoff value is Liberal

  • increases sensitivity

Violence Risk prediction

• screenings used in courtoom/legal setting

• looks at the chances of a person “relapsing”

“Risk” Formula

Adolescence Delinquency + Prior violence + Substance Abuse

Clinical assessment approach

completely unstructured, choose risk factors to make estimates based on pure judgment

• increased Biases and inaccuracies

Actuarial assessment approach

Compelty structured, totally determined by cutoffs and equations

VRAG (Violence rating Assessment Guide)

• 12-item scale that makes assessment of violence following release

• Identifies items with strongest predictive power

• combines optimal factors for score

Base-Rate

Proportion of people who meet criteria for something

• less frequent events (suicide) harder to predict

• people play it very safe