A survey of neuropsychologists' practices and perspectives regarding the assessment of judgment ability.
Judgment is an important aspect of cognitive and real-world functioning that is commonly assessed during neuropsychological evaluations. This study utilized a brief, online survey to examine neuropsychologists' practices and perspectives regarding available judgment instruments. Participants (n = 290, 17% response rate) were randomly selected members of the International Neuropsychological Society and the National Academy of Neuropsychology. Respondents rank-ordered the following issues that should be incorporated into assessments of judgment (from most to least important): safety, ability to perform activities of daily living, and problem solving/decision making about medical, financial, social/ethical, and legal matters. A majority of respondents reported that they "often" or "always" assessed judgment when evaluating patients with traumatic brain injury (89%), dementia (87%), and psychiatric disorders (70%). Surprisingly, the top-ranked instruments were not tests of judgment per se, and included the WAIS-III Comprehension, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and WAIS-III Similarities. Further, 61% of respondents were slightly confident, and only 23% were very confident, in their ability to assess a patient's judgment skills with their current tests. The overwhelming majority (87%) of respondents perceived a need for improved measures. Overall results indicate use of varied techniques by neuropsychologists to evaluate judgment and suggest the need for additional tests of this cognitive domain.
Rabin
Laura A
LA
Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of City University of New York, Brooklyn, New York 11210, USA. lrabin@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Borgos
Marlana J
MJ
Saykin
Andrew J
AJ
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires