Category: Assessment
Tristan Maesaka, M.A.
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Honolulu, Hawaii
Michael Southam-Gerow, Ph.D.
Faculty
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia
Marina Matsui, M.A.
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Honolulu, Hawaii
Joshua Langfus, M.A.
Graduate Student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Nichole Baker, M.A.
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Cole Hooley, Ph.D., LCSW
Assistant Professor
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
Psychological assessment has a long and significant history as a cornerstone in the profession of clinical psychology. The development of strategies, tools, and statistical approaches to accurately measure and evaluate the human condition have played a critical role in advancing our policies and practices around psychological services, and is something that helps to set us apart from other healthcare disciplines. Despite its significance, evidence-based assessment has long taken a back seat to treatment service research, albeit its potential to aid and enhance our efforts toward improving the quality of mental healthcare and overall wellbeing in our communities.
The current symposium brings together wide and varied research initiatives in innovative evidence-based assessment tools and strategies. Our first presenter will describe results from a psychometric evaluation of a novel, transdiagnostic youth report tool that leverages distillation methodology to provide comprehensive screening of youth socio-emotional competencies across different therapeutic skills (e.g., relaxation, exposure). Results demonstrated a three higher-order hierarchical factor structure and lower-order domains centered on 13 practice elements and evidence for convergent and divergent validity. Our second presenter will discuss the psychometric properties of a 16-item measure for reactive aggression. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated a two-factor structure with high internal consistencies. The 16-item measure also demonstrated good criterion validity, significantly predicting clinically relevant outcomes such as, medication usage, irritability, and attention problems. Our third presenter will discuss methodology for discriminating between recovered and unrecovered individuals who have been classified as retention failures (e.g., “dropouts”) from a community care clinic. Findings indicated that treatment completers had more sessions and were statistically distinct from both retention failure groups, but differed in treatment length from the unrecovered retention failure group. Lastly, our fourth presenter will describe a methodological approach for assessing the number of treatment recipients who receive different services in a public mental health system. This will include discussion of analyses (e.g., network analysis) used to cross examine different system data sources (e.g., service data) and a case example illustrating the assessment method. The aforementioned research will be discussed by Dr. Michael Southam-Gerow, an internationally renowned expert in the area of youth mental health evidence-based practice dissemination and implementation.
Taken together, these studies represent innovative ideas in evidence-based assessment that have the potential to shape future policies and procedures for identifying and treating individuals with mental health needs. Attendees of this symposium will gain insight into these novel research approaches and a newfound understanding of how these innovations may better support the field in times of unexpected crises and emergency.
Presenter: Marina M. Matsui, M.A. – University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Co-author: Brad Nakamura, Ph.D. – University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Presenter: Joshua A. Langfus, M.A. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Cecil Reynolds, PhD – Texas A&M University
Co-author: Robert Findling, MD, MBA – Virginia Commonwealth University
Co-author: Eric A. Youngstrom, Ph.D. – University of North Carolina at Chapel HIll; Helping Give Away Psychological Science
Presenter: Nichole Baker, M.A. – University of Texas at Austin
Co-author: Amanda Bowling, MA – University of texas at austin
Co-author: Rafaella Sale, Ph.D. – Virginia Commonwealth University
Co-author: Rebecca Woo, MA – University of texas at austin
Co-author: Sarah Kate Bearman, Ph.D. – The University of Texas at Austin
Presenter: Cole Hooley, Ph.D., LCSW – Brigham Young University
Co-author: Cole Hooley, Ph.D., LCSW – Brigham Young University
Co-author: Deborah Salvo, Ph.D. – Washington University in St. Louis
Co-author: Lauren Brookman-Frazee, Ph.D. – University of California, San Diego
Co-author: Anna S. Lau, Ph.D. – UCLA
Co-author: Debbie Innes-Gomberg, Ph.D. – Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Co-author: Enola Proctor, Ph.D., MSSW – Washington University in St. Louis