title: Future directions in psychological assessment: combining evidence-based medicine innovations with psychology's historical strengths to enhance utility.
abstract: Assessment has been a historical strength of psychology, with sophisticated traditions of measurement, psychometrics, and theoretical underpinnings. However, training, reimbursement, and utilization of psychological assessment have been eroded in many settings. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) offers a different perspective on evaluation that complements traditional strengths of psychological assessment. EBM ties assessment directly to clinical decision making about the individual, uses simplified Bayesian methods explicitly to integrate assessment data, and solicits patient preferences as part of the decision-making process. Combining the EBM perspective with psychological assessment creates a hybrid approach that is more client centered, and it defines a set of applied research topics that are highly clinically relevant. This article offers a sequence of a dozen facets of the revised assessment process, along with examples of corollary research studies. An eclectic integration of EBM and evidence-based assessment generates a powerful hybrid that is likely to have broad applicability within clinical psychology and enhance the utility of psychological assessments.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, USA. eay@unc.edu
authors.forename: Eric A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Youngstrom
mesh_terms: D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011586:Psychology, Clinical / Q000639:trends*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results