Applying Decision Research to Improve Clinical Outcomes, Psychological Assessment, and Clinical Prediction

Mental health professionals often make explicit or implicit predictions involving crucial matters--Is a client at risk for self-harm or harming others? What treatment approach is most likely to be successful? Has a child been subjected to sexual or physical abuse? Decision research has particularly strong applied use for improving the accuracy of such determinations; unfortunately this work has not been broadly disseminated in the mental healthfield.Applying Decision Research to Improve Clinical Outcomes, Psychological Assessment, and Clinical Prediction introduces graduate students and practitioners in the mental health field to research,knowledge, and practical strategies that can enhance diagnostic and predictive accuracy and thereby improve client care. Major chapters of the book address well-established, but often under-recognized, principles and procedures for improving the integration of clinical data and interpretive accuracy; the differentiation between seemingly accurate but illusory, as opposed to genuine, associations between signs, symptoms, and outcomes; and the minimization of impediments to accurate decisionmaking. The authors merge applied clinical tasks in the mental health field with decision research and cognitive psychology to suggest ways in which prediction, diagnosis, and assessment can beaccomplished with greater efficacy and precision.

"Faust, Arkes, and Gaudet have produced the best book on clinical decision-making in psychology ever written. It is that simple. They have taken what can be very obtuse sets of research and logic and applied the existing science to all aspects of clinical decision-making and prediction in a way that is eminently readable and synthesized remarkably well. Addressing current hot topics in the field as well as updating the key aspects of the actuarial vs. clinical decision methods and debates, I can assure you that reading this book will make you better at clinical diagnosis, prediction, and selection matters. We owe it to our clients, patients, and colleagues to read this book."

-- Cecil R. Reynolds, PhD, Distinguished Research Scholar, Texas A&M University

David Faust, PhD is Professor, Department of Psychology and Fellow of the Ryan Institute of Neuroscience, University of Rhode Island; Affiliate Professor, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Department of Psychiatry and Human BehaviorHal R. Arkes, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Ohio State University; Associate, Harding Center for Risk LiteracyCharles E. Gaudet, PhD is Fellow, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital

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