Assignment: Empirical Critiques on an Assessment

Assignment: Empirical Critiques on an Assessment

Assignment: Empirical Critiques on an Assessment

Students will conduct a critique on an assessment using empirical sources/studies.

(i.e. Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (PCL-YV), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS Cognitive Appraisal Questionnaire (CAQ)).

Choose a different assessment for each due date – no duplication.

The critiques will be written in proper APA.

Introduction, relevancy, application, etc.

There will be 4 critiques due about 3-5 pages long.

Include a title page, in-text citations, and a reference page.

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Sample Critique Paper

Assessment Critique on The Beck Anxiety Inventory

Introduction

The Beck Anxiety Inventory was designed by Aaron T. Beck and is self-report scale that consists of 21 items (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). The items are short and straightforward, making it easy to read and comprehend. All items are related to anxiety and describe a symptom of anxiety that is rate on a four point likert scale according to severity. The answers range from 0-3 and the responses range from “not at all” to “severely; I could barely stand it” and all items are added for a total score. The instructions on the test ask for the respondent to indicate how much you have been bothered by each symptom during the past week, including today, by placing an X in the corresponding space in the column next to each symptom (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). The assessment is intended for adolescents and adults and can be administered individually or in a group setting. An additional copy of the inventory test is also available in Spanish. It was originally created from a sample of 810 outpatients of that were predominately affected by mood and anxiety disorders and research on the original development is described as informative and thorough.

Relevancy

In a study by Lee, Kim, and Cho (2018), the Beck Anxiety Inventory was used to measure clients with depression. The participants were 406 patients with mixed psychiatric diagnoses including anxiety and depressive disorders from a psychiatric outpatient unit at a university-affiliated medical center. Responses of the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II, and Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were analyzed (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). We conducted an exploratory factor analysis of 42 items from the BAI and BDI-II. Correlational analyses were performed between subscale scores of the SCL-90-R and factors derived from the factor analysis. Scores of individual items of the BAI and BDI-II were also compared between groups of anxiety disorder (n = 185) and depressive disorder (n = 123) (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018).

Application

Depression and anxiety are perhaps the two most common psychological symptoms and they often coexist. In fact, depressive and anxiety disorders are the most common comorbid psychiatric illnesses in both general and clinical populations (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). The US National Comorbidity Survey reported 51% of patients with major depression also suffered from any anxiety disorders in the past 12 months and the lifetime prevalence was similar (58%), indicating chronicity of the comorbid anxiety condition (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). Prevalence of anxiety disorder in depressed patients was 67% in the past year and 75% in their lifetime; vice versa, rates of depressive disorder in patients with anxiety disorder was 63% and 81%, respectively.

Clinical data also replicated these results: in a large clinical cohort of anxiety disorders, 64% had current diagnosis of major depressive disorder (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). It was also found that comorbid prevalence rate of a mood disorder varies across individual anxiety disorders ranging from 15% in simple phobia to 66% in obsessive compulsive disorder. The negative impact of anxiety-depression comorbidity is also noteworthy: patients with these conditions have a more severe clinical condition and increased suicidal attempts and risk, implying a more negative course and more negative outcomes (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018).

Limitations

Despite this high coexistence of anxiety and depressive disorders, there is controversy as to whether these two constructs have a single basic underlying dimension or if they are two distinct entities. Nosologically speaking, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) considers depressive disorder and anxiety disorder different entities, although International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision has left one exceptional integrated zone, ‘mixed anxiety and depressive disorder,’ when anxiety or depression are concurrent but neither of them are dominant and fall short of independent diagnoses (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). Another area that needs to be understood is the co-occurrence of anxiety and depressive symptoms. For example, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, and fatigue are common symptoms both generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder (Lee, Kim, and Cho, 2018). Self-rating instruments of anxiety and depression in adults have been known to have poor discriminant validity although clinical ratings tend to better distinguish between anxiety and depression.

Conclusion

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