Patient Assessment & Clinical Evaluation Flashcards

A health psychologist is asked to evaluate a patient's adherence to a complex medication regimen. Which type of measure provides the most objective data?

Answer: Electronic medication monitoring (e.g., MEMS caps)

Electronic monitoring systems record each bottle opening, providing timestamped objective data superior to self-report or pill count methods.

During assessment, a patient endorses passive death wishes but denies active suicidal ideation or plan. How should the clinician document this finding?

Answer: Passive suicidal ideation without intent or plan

Passive suicidal ideation involves wishes to die without active planning or intent, which is clinically distinct from active suicidal ideation.

Which factor most significantly inflates test scores on intelligence measures for individuals from minority cultural backgrounds, potentially leading to misdiagnosis?

Answer: Normative sample underrepresentation

When normative samples underrepresent minority groups, scores may be compared to non-representative norms, distorting interpretation.

A psychologist is asked to differentiate between ADHD and anxiety in an adult patient presenting with concentration difficulties. Which assessment strategy is most informative?

Answer: Multi-method battery including symptom rating scales, continuous performance tests, and clinical interview

Differentiating ADHD from anxiety requires multiple data sources including self-report, performance-based attention measures, and developmental history.

In health psychology, the 'illness perception' model (Leventhal) is relevant to patient assessment because it predicts:

Answer: How patients' beliefs about illness influence coping and treatment engagement

Leventhal's Common Sense Model shows that patient illness representations (identity, timeline, cause, consequences, controllability) directly shape health behaviors.

A psychologist notices that a patient performs significantly better on memory tasks with semantic cues than without. What does this encoding specificity pattern suggest about the memory deficit?

Answer: Retrieval failure with intact encoding

Benefit from cues indicates the information was encoded but cannot be spontaneously retrieved, pointing to a retrieval rather than storage deficit.

Which ethical principle is most directly at stake when a psychologist decides whether to share assessment results with a patient's employer without consent?

Answer: Confidentiality and autonomy

Sharing assessment data without patient consent violates confidentiality and undermines patient autonomy, core ethical obligations in psychological practice.