Evidence-based assessment

Evidence-based assessment (EBA) uses research and theory to guide choices about what to measure, how to measure it, and what to do next based on the results during clinical work. Even when we use good tests that have shown good psychometrics in similar settings, assessment is inherently a decision-making task where the clinician must iteratively formulate and test hypotheses by integrating data that are often incomplete and inconsistent. EBA helps clinicians to work smarter, not harder, making more accurate decisions quickly to guide what we do next with a person.

The EBA model combines skills, tools, and strategies to work more efficiently and accurately, often producing better outcomes. We can gather the pieces in a "just in time" way, developing questions and searching for answers based on each client's needs.

Many of the pages in this site use clinical cases to show how the principles and tools work. Cases make the concepts more clear and memorable, connecting information to practical choices and actions. Asking answerable clinical questions is a core skill to updating our practices and staying fresh as a clinician and relevant as a researcher.

The site is organized so that there are several different ways to approach it: by phase of treatment, by disorder or clinical issue, via case examples and vignettes, or through lists. Here is a tool that counts how many times the different pages have been viewed (so you can see the "greatest hits").

Assessment toolkits organized by topic or disorder

 * These were previously known as "portfolios" -- rebranded as "toolkits" for general audiences
 * Categorized by disorder, this resource lists the best-quality assessment measures.

"Which Questionnaire Should I Use?"

 * An extensive list for clinicians of assessment options organized by diagnosis or clinical issue
 * One-stop shop to view/download the best-quality measures for clinicians
 * Links to some free online versions with scoring and resource suggestions
 * Sortable by disorder, age range, informant (e.g., parent- or self-report) measures

Clinical vignettes

 * Shows how to use EBA principles with clinical cases

EBA clinicians' manual
This list describes the four discrete assessment phases of evidence-based assessment, and the twelve steps that a clinician should follow to practice evidence-based assessment.
 * 1) Preparation phase
 * 2) * Step 1: Plan for most common issues in clinic setting
 * 3) * Step 2: Benchmark base rates for issues
 * 4) Prediction phase
 * 5) * Step 3: Evaluate risk and protective factors and moderators
 * 6) * Step 4: Revise probabilities based on intake assessments
 * 7) * Step 5: Gather collateral, cross-informant perspectives
 * 8) Prescription phase
 * 9) * Step 6: Add focused, incremental assessments
 * 10) * Step 7: Add more intensive methods to finalize diagnoses and case formulation
 * 11) * Step 8: Assess for treatment plan and goal setting
 * 12) * Step 9: Learn and use client preferences
 * 13) Process phase
 * 14) * Step 10: Goal setting: Milestones and outcomes
 * 15) * Step 11: Progress and process measures
 * 16) * Step 12: Wrapping up and maintaining gains


 * We are working to build a step-by-step evidence-based assessment manual that clinicians can follow along, with built-in examples. This is our effort to manualize the teaching and application of EBA principles. It's like an EBA textbook!

Primary Care Toolkit

 * Assessment and intervention resources for the busy primary care provider. Sortable by age, presenting problem, and type of intervention.

Psychological measures

 * All of the assessment measures that we have worked on. Includes scoring information.

Helpful references
''This page lists chapters from edited handbooks for assessment and treatment. Split by adult/child, this page lists resources for those who want to read more about EBA and EBP. Because these are chapters in edited volumes, they are also particularly appropriate to use in Wikipedia pages.''

Teaching
There are a variety of different teaching resources that could be helpful in learning, teaching, and building more resources.

Open Teaching of Psychological Science (OToPS)

 * OToPS is a site that pulls together resources for teaching Psychology. It is open-source, and intended to be shared.

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) workshop series

 * A researcher resource, this is our effort to make research papers more clinically significant. Provides a framework for running ROC analyses.

Helping Give Away Psychological Science

 * Helping Give Away Psychological Science (HGAPS pronounced as two syllables: "H-Gaps") is a Nonprofit Organization (501c3) linked with student service organizations. HGAPS is dedicated to bringing the best information about psychological science to the people who would benefit. We build small teams to improve the information about psychology on Wikipedia for the general community, and on Wikiversity for professionals, including practicing clinicians, graduate students, and researchers. On Wikipedia, we aim to make the pages reach the level of the best college textbook on the topic; on Wikiversity, we go into more technical detail about how to compare, score, interpret, and apply the best tools. We are gathering resources and links to help clinicians, clients, and educators find high quality material and information quickly.

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Alphabetical Index of Pages

 * Assessment portfolios by disorder (under construction)