It only takes one psychologist to demonstrate the impact of psychological assessment

Evidence is needed in the field of psychological assessment of psychiatric patients to verify if test findings actually influence the clinical processes of diagnosis, treatment, case disposition, and outcome. Those who perform many assessments can conduct limited experiments to measure these effects. One such study is presented. It is a quasi-experiment in which the value of the psychologist's diagnostic recommendations to treating psychiatrists was measured. Diagnoses at admission, at subsequent psychological evaluation, and at discharge were compared among 70 patients referred to a clinical diplomate from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) for assessment. The psychiatrists who had referred the patient agreed with the psychologist's diagnosis in 94% of the cases. Agreement was high even when the psychologist had disagreed with the admitting psychiatrists' diagnoses. Despite imperfections in research design, the study demonstrates that solo practitioners can evaluate the impact of assessment. Other possibilities for study are presented, as are reasons for the significant findings of this study.