"Is the psychological test accurate?" Interpreting the Use of Psychiatric Scale

1. Are you more attracted to the opposite sex? 2. What is the main color of your personality? 3. How old are you mentally? 4. What is your most suitable occupation? Do you want to know? Let's do a psychological test!

People who surf the Internet frequently these days haven't done a few particularly accurate "psychological tests". When I got the results, I saw, "handsome/romantic and mysterious purple /60-year-old/artist, so this is the real me!" How accurate! "Then generate pictures and forward them to the circle of friends-in those years, we forwarded dozens of" psychological tests ",not a hundred.

But have you ever had a real psychological test? Painting style is different.

1, the psychological test hospital is in the hospital

Patients who have been to psychiatry are familiar with psychological tests.

For the first time, some hospitals will ask you to do a set of test questions, and then enter the clinic. I met with the doctor and talked a few words. The doctor wrote several sets, such as SCL-90(90 symptom list), MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Scale), EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire), PHQ-9 (Depression Screening Scale) and so on. The doctor will prescribe more when he comes again. Without saying a few words, I went to do the problem. These questions are many and boring. Half a day passed after I finished, and the price was not cheap, it was dozens or hundreds. However, this is the real psychological test.

Not out of curiosity, nor to cheat clicks. The psychological tests of professionals are all for practical needs. IQ test is to screen out underachievers and supernormals, so as to teach students in accordance with their aptitude. The purpose of career orientation test is to discover personal interests and specialties in advance and realize that you are naturally useful; The purpose of psychiatric evaluation scale is to screen diseases in time, assist diagnosis and evaluate treatment effect, so as to find treatment early or adjust treatment plan in time. Take PHQ-9 Scale, one of the most commonly used scales in psychiatry, as an example. As we all know, most mental diseases are diagnosed according to phenomenology. Doctors judge whether you have a problem according to the severity and duration of your symptoms and the degree of damage to your function. PHQ-9 is such a screening and auxiliary diagnostic scale. If you compare the problem of PHQ-9 with the diagnostic criteria of DSM-V, you will find that there is basically a one-to-one correspondence: the duration of symptoms, symptoms and positive criteria. Therefore, through nine simple questions, doctors can quickly make a preliminary assessment of whether patients may suffer from depression. It was found that the sensitivity of PHQ-9 in diagnosing depression was as high as 0.9 1, and the specificity was as high as 0.97. In other words, most patients with positive clinical PHQ-9 test results are finally diagnosed as depression. To some extent, the scale is like a "laboratory sheet" in psychiatry, which can standardize, refine, objectify and quantify the diagnosis and evaluation of mental illness.

Of course, different scales have different measurement contents and usage scenarios, some are suitable for screening (with or without), some are suitable for evaluating (severity), some are comprehensive scales, and some are specially used to test a disease or symptom. In the outpatient department, every scale examination item prescribed by the doctor has its own purpose and consideration.

2. The birth of professional scale.

Sometimes, we look at all kinds of interesting tests on the Internet and think, can't professional psychological tests be like this? It's really hard to have it both ways.

In order to provide you with more professional and convenient self-help tools, an important task that our department has been undertaking is to rearrange and develop the scales on the platform. Of course, our ability is limited. Instead of development, we should stand on the shoulders of giants and optimize the scale. Then, we find that the content of a professional scale that can be widely used is not only based on the title and score: the evaluation theory, evaluation content, application scope, structural factors, calculation logic, norm, reliability and validity, sensitivity and specificity of the scale need to be clarified one by one. The reliability and validity test of the scale is the most critical link and the two most important indicators to measure the quality of the scale. Reliability refers to the reliability of scale. I'm sick today, but I'm sure I can't if I'm not sick tomorrow. Validity refers to the validity of the scale, that is, whether the results of the scale test are what you want, and you want to know whether you are depressed, but this scale measures the degree of anxiety, which is definitely not acceptable. In order to meet these two conditions at the same time, the number of questions in the scale should not be too small, the content should not be exaggerated, and an interesting test should not be done.

/Interesting psychological test, online traffic password/

Look at those fun tests with screens, which have three characteristics at the same time:

The number of topics is small;

The content is humorous and interesting;

The result is ambiguous;

Only when the number of questions is small can the completion rate be guaranteed; The content is humorous and interesting, ensuring communication; If the result is not clear, "accuracy" can be guaranteed; Occupation scale is a key issue abstracted from facts based on theoretical support and scientific basis. The above three points are contrary to the requirements of a professional scale.

3. How to interpret the test results?

There are still many patients who are puzzled. Many hospitals offer the same scales that I found online for free. Why do you charge?

Because many measures, more importantly, the professional interpretation of the results report, and you often get more than one score from the doctor or the payment scale.

Taking the updated payment scale on our platform as an example, the existence and seriousness of the test results are explained in detail. If there are multiple dimensions, the score of each dimension will be explained one by one, prompting the risk of disease and giving some appropriate self-adjustment suggestions. If you report the scale to the doctor, they can provide more information about diagnosis and treatment. Moreover, some terms in the scale may be different from the actual clinical significance and need special analysis.

/Example of Good Mood Scale Report/

In addition, when we look at the results of the scale ourselves, please don't ignore the tip above, "The test results are only used as evaluation tools, not as diagnosis". The function of the scale is equivalent to laboratory examination, and the results are only for the reference of clinicians and patients, and can not replace the work and judgment of clinicians, let alone psychiatric appraisal. It is even more forbidden to "measure for life." During this period, I was very depressed. If you measure "severe depression", you will label yourself as depressed, indulge in negative emotions, give up adjustment, and finally go to the hospital for diagnosis. This is only a temporary depression. The doctor told you that it would be fine to adjust for two weeks. Although many online scales are not formal, or the explanation is very simple, it is often the first step to understand the problem and face it squarely. Nowadays, mental and psychological problems are more and more common. Psychological tests, especially disease screening, are better than nothing, and professional ones are better than unprofessional ones. I hope that next time, the psychological test in our circle of friends is a professional psychiatric screening scale.

References:

Min Baoquan, Zhou Aihong, Liang Feng, et al. Clinical Application of Patient Health Questionnaire-Self-Rating Depression Scale (PHQ-9) [J]. Neurology and Mental Health 20 13, Vol. 13, No.6,

Page 569-572, ISTIC, 20 13. [2] Zhang Mingyuan, He Yanling. Handbook of psychiatric rating scale.