Maintaining psychology's scientific and professional credibility and ethical responsibility to self-regulate: a comment on "validations" of mental health assessment instruments.
Recent growth of "managed" mental health care in the United States has spawned huge demand for products that draw on one of psychology's most well developed subdisciplines, tests and measurement. The commercial potential of mental health assessment instruments intended for widespread use, to meet what Kraus, Seligman, and Jordan (this volume) describe as "an industry-wide surge in outcome evaluations in naturalistic ... settings," necessarily raises conflict of interest dilemmas for those who develop and market them. The American Psychological Association has devoted intensive effort to the preceding issue as it pertains to other aspects of the science and practice of clinical psychology. Comparable attention has not been focused recently on the development and marketing of assessment instruments. This Comment highlights the issue and suggests types of self-regulatory actions that might be taken, e.g., requiring and publishing full disclosure statements of authors' relationships to companies that market instruments like the Treatment Outcome Package in psychometric articles in which they are evaluated.
Moras
Karla
K
Consultant, Merion, PA, USA. karla.moras@verizon.net
D016265:Conflict of Interest; D030881:Disclosure; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing / Q000941:ethics*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000941:ethics*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011361:Professional Competence; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011586:Psychology, Clinical / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014481:United States