Exam 3: Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis

Many popular magazines include "psychological" or "personality" tests to help readers better understand themselves or others.How does your textbook view most of these tests?

What is the primary basis for a prognosis?

Describe the influence of culture on the experience of psychopathology.Why is it important for the clinician to acknowledge and appreciate the patient's culture before determining a diagnosis?

The term "sensorium" refers to part of the mental status exam.What does sensorium mean?

Why does the assessment concept known as reliability increase in the MMPI?

Projective tests such as the Thematic Apperception Test and the original Rorschach inkblot test are often criticized with regard to their reliability.Explain why the reliability of these tests may not be as good as a personality measure such as the MMPI.

Determining mood and affect is an important part of the mental status exam.Although both of these terms refer to feeling states of the individual,how does mood differ from affect?

How do semistructured interviews differ from unstructured interviews?

Dr.Hall,a clinical psychologist,decides to conduct a behavioural assessment of five-year-old Sarah,instead of a clinical interview,after her parents report that she has had repeated and often physical conflicts with other children on the playground.Why is a behavioural assessment preferable in this case?

What is used to assess results on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?

Which of the following is NOT a category covered in a mental status exam?

Which neuroimaging device would be used to examine dopamine activity in individuals with bipolar disorder?

If a clinician deviates from a structured interview,what type of assessment is he or she using?

Suppose a clinician creates criteria for a diagnosis that reflects what most experts in the field consider to be a particular prototypical patient.What is the clinician doing?

On which MMPI scale would a pattern of responses indicating negative expectations about the motives of others and generalized distrust produce a high score?

Which of the following is used to measure electrical activity in the brain?

Accurate diagnoses are partly dependent on the reliability and validity of the diagnostic system being used (e.g.,the DSM 5).What else does diagnostic accuracy depend on?

What do the terms "taxonomy" and "nosology" refer to?

What do we call the systematic evaluation of psychological,biological,and social factors in a person with a possible mental disorder?

What is considered the most significant difference between the DSM-IV-R to the DSM-5?