Quiz 3 (better terminology)

Cards (68)

  • Clinical psychologists do research to gain knowledge about psychological disorders
  • Treatment outcome is when clinical psychologists conduct research on how well their therapies work
  • Essential questions to ask when measuring therapy outcome:
    • How should psychotherapy outcome be measured?
    • What should be measured when assessing psychotherapy outcome?
    • When should psychotherapy outcome be measured?
    • Who should rate psychotherapy outcome?
  • Efficacy refers to the success of a particular therapy in a controlled study conducted with clients who were chosen according to particular study criteria
  • To test efficacy, participants are selected on basis of meeting strict diagnostic criteria, in that they lack comorbid diseases
  • Effectiveness refers to the success of a therapy in actual clinical settings in which client problems spam a wider range, and clients are not necessarily chosen as a result of meeting rigid diagnostic criteria
  • Effectiveness is how well it works in the real world
  • When it comes to effectiveness, the lack of scientific rigor leaves us unsure that the therapy is undoubtedly the factor that produced the outcome
  • When measuring the outcome of therapy in either an efficacy or effectiveness study, researchers must be careful to distinguish statistical significant from clinical (real-world) significance when interpreting results
  • Statistical tests can indicate whether a significant difference exists between two groups
  • Internal validity refers to the extent to which the change in the dependent variable is due solely to the change in the independent variable
  • External validity refers to the generalizability of the result, the extent to which the same finding is valid for different settings and populations
  • Efficacy studies have high internal validity, but have low external validity
  • Effectiveness studies have high external validity, but low internal validity
  • Dissemination strategies are efforts to promote therapies that have demonstrated effectiveness in treatment studies to large numbers of therapists
  • Researchers must select clients who meet the DSM diagnostic criteria and whose diagnostic profiles are free of other complicating factors or comorbidities
  • Unfortunately, many studies lack participants of ethnic minorities, and the conclusions regarding efficacy are not necessarily applicable to those differing from the study's participants
  • Success of cultural adaptations can enable improvement in related problems including the fact that ethnic minorities simply receive less psychotherapy than those in the majority
  • There are continuing studies about assessment methods
  • Clinical psychologists also examine elements of their own profession through empirical research
  • Impostor syndrome is commonly experienced by graduate students - the belief that they believe they are not as capable as others
  • The experimental method involves a number of sequential steps: observation of events, hypothesis, experiment, analyzing the results
  • The independent and dependent variables are mentioned in the hypothesis
  • The independent variables are manipulated by the experimenter
  • The dependent variables are expected to change as a result of the independent variables, a measurable value.
  • Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are when researchers test the outcome of a particular, manualized therapy on a particular diagnosis
  • RCTs begin with recruitment and selection of participants who meet criteria for the diagnosis
  • In RCTs, participants are randomly assigned to the experimental group that receives the therapy, or a control group that does not.
  • In RCTs, the control group may either get no treatment, be waitlisted, get a placebo or nonspecific treatment or receive a routine type of therapy
  • In RCTs, target variables are assessed at the outlet as baseline and at the end (e.g. measures of symptoms - frequency of panic attacks)
  • RCTs maximize internal validity by ensuring that improvements in patients are due to the therapy rather than external factors
  • RCTs also oversimplify clinical problems by reducing them to objective and easily measured symptoms - producing results that may not translate to the real world
  • Quasi-experiments estimate causal relationships and have participants that are grouped on non-random criteria.
  • Quasi-experiments do NOT have random assignment, and occur when there may be impractical or have ethical issues
  • Quasi experiments do not have good internal validity
  • Between-group designs are when participants in different conditions receive entirely different treatments
  • Between-group studies have two conditions or groups, one would be an experimental group, the other would be the control
  • Within-group designs involve comparisons of participants in a single condition at various points in time
  • In other words, within-group studies would see if the levels depend on the point in time they were assessed
  • Mixed-group designs combine traits, having both an experimental group and control group, all while measuring changes in all participants on a weekly basis