Psychosocial assessment for treatment planning and evaluation

1. Use of standardized measures to document a client's psychosocial status and circumstances yields readily interpretable data. These data can provide a basis for treatment selection and make possible reliable documentation of change. 2. Identification of the best measure(s) for a particular purpose requires consideration of the reason for the assessment, intended use of the data, characteristics of instruments, capabilities of respondents, and available resources. 3. Increased use of measures can advance efforts to obtain rigorous and comparative data in psychosocial nursing research and practice. Such information advances science, develops clinical acumen, and documents the results of interventions.