Assessment & Diagnosis, Article Review Example

The article, “Assessment & Diagnosis” by Brooke E. Muller and Bradley T. Erford focuses on analyzing methods for treating depression in school-age youth, based on assessment instruments used. The article highlights various methods of depression assessment via interviews or reporting from patients, parents, or teachers. Additionally, the article gives information on the effectiveness of counseling and psychotherapy interventions, based on methods of assessment analysis. Another method of assessing the effectiveness of counseling interventions for depressed school-age youth was by analyzing 42 published works between 1990 and 2009. This article examines practical and technical characteristics of commonly used depression assessment instruments (6 total) to determine the instruments’ ability to effectively measure depression treatment outcomes of school-age youth.

Strengths

Strengths of this article include a thorough breakdown of the six most commonly used assessment methods for scaling depression in school-age youth. These are 1) CDI, 2) BDI-II, 3) HAM-D, 4) ASEBA, 5) CES-D, and 6) RADS-2.

The CDI is used to analyze depression in children ages 7 to 17 by surveying parents and teachers. The BDI-II measures depression severity in youth ages 13 and older, not already diagnosed. The HAM-D assessment measures depression severity in previously diagnosed youth. The ASEBA assesses and identifies behavioral and emotional disorders in youth 18 months to 18 years of age. The CES-D is a self-reporting scale for youth ages 14 and older. The RADS-2 is also a self-reporting instrument that measures depressive symptoms in youth ages 11 to 20 years.

Limitations

According to the article, a major limitation for study was the limited amount of quality clinical trials regarding only 42 clinical trials from 1990 to 2009 being used. Additionally, although more than one outcome measure could have been used, only 15 of the 42 clinical trials used more than one outcome measure to assess depression. This meant that outcome comparisons were based on small sample sizes.

Research Implications

Future research implications include broadening the clinical trials scope so that the number of studies and sample sizes are increased. This will accommodate the use of the accumulation of future research findings to allow interpretations to be analyzed with greater confidence.

Counseling Implications

Significant counseling research implications highlighted in the article include assessing how future depression treatment outcomes for school-age youth will consistently use multiple measures and instruments of high quality, instead of just one depression outcome measure. This would allow for more quality evidence of depression treatment effects over time, across all measures. This is in line with best practices for accurate reporting in this area of study.

Reference

Muller, B. E., & Erford, B. T. (2012, April). Assessment & Diagnosis. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(1), 208-220.