Clinician-Rated Test Essay
All clinician–rated test should have three types of reliability: internal reliability, retest reliability, and
interrater reliability (Bagby, Ryder, Schuller, & Marshall, 2004). Research regarding who the HRSD
was normed on is unavailable. However, Cusin et al. (2012) recently reported on the HRSD
psychometrics properties. Interrater reliability of the total scores for the HRSD is considered to be a
strong relationship ranging from 0.80–0.98, with Cronbach alpha estimates of ≥0.70 which is an
adequate score. Interrater reliability examines the relationship between scores provided by different
raters observing the same phenomenon and Cronbach's alpha, is the average of all possible split–half
reliabilities (Shultz, Whitney, & Zickar, ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
One issue with test retest reliability is that longer intervals are likely to impose psychological
change, thus changing true scores (Furr, & Bacharach, 2013). Therefore, the interval amount of time
can have an impact on the client's score. Cusins et al. (2012), research does not indicate the interval
time, but their retest reliability score of 0.81 is indicative of a strong relationship.
The factor structure of the Hamilton depression scale comprises of part of validity 1) content, 2)
convergent, 3) discriminant, 4) factorial, and 5) predictive validity. Cusins et al. (2012), did not go
in depth regarding the assessment validity, but did indicate that the HRDS has been reported of
having a validity from the ranges of range from 0.65 to 0.90, which is considered to be a strong
relationship. A study by Bagby et al. (2004) did refer to the different types of validity in the HRSD.
The term validity refers to if an assessment properly measures what it supposed to measure (Shultz,
Whitney, & Zickar, 2013). Content validity is performed by a rational inspection of the completed
test by subject matter experts (Furr, & Bacharach, 2013). According to Bagby et al. (2004), the
HRSD has poor content validity. The rationale for this is because although the symptoms listed on
the HRSD are features associated with depression, the assessment does not match the official DSM
diagnostic criteria. Since the development of the HRSD, the definition of depression has
... Get more on HelpWriting.net ...