Assessment of psychopathology through the tests?

Abstract

Introduction: it seems to be a trend in health psychology, overestimating the use of psychometric instruments and underestimating psychopathology. Objective: To study the discrepancies and differences that appears to assess the psychopathology through diagnostic criteria or through specifi c tests of anxiety and depression. Materials and Method: The sample contains 100 fi rst consecutive outpatient interviews referred by various hospital services to our Unit for their evaluation and treatment. Each patient underwent a clinical interview and we passed to them the Scales HADS, MADRS and BSA to compare the psychometric assessment. Results: We compare the results of application the ICD-10 clinical criteria with the scales. Although we found no statistically significant differences, we found a clear discrepancy. In our study, the BSA scale has more sensitivity and specifi city than HADS-A for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The MADRS is less sensitive but more specific than the HADS-D. Discussion: the use not complementary of criteria or instruments can createa huge confusion refl ected in the literature. Differentiate between statistical and diagnostic, defi ne the concepts that we use, weigh up the language and the arguments that we use in articles, all of this can help us to improve the classifi cations, to clarify the different or confl ictive observations with them, as a rational use of the scales.