Ethical, Legal, and Utility Issues in Assessment
Substance abuse, especially addiction of is a serious problem in the society. Substance abuse is due to addiction, which is a disease procedure characterized by habitual use of a particular psychoactive substance. The person who has the problem of substance addiction engages in a sequence of behaviors concerning the substance abuse, which leads to dependence syndrome or abuse disorder. Therefore, there is the need to develop appropriate and reliable assessment instrument and mechanism, which will enable the physician to address the problem of substance addiction. Therefore there is a great need to consider the element of uncertainty in evaluation and during making conformity decisions.
Therefore, the study of weakness and strength of a chosen assessment tool plays a key role in determining its effectiveness in studying a behavior. The chosen method of evaluation should meet the required standards of evaluation by giving valid results, which can be used to provide a solution for a problem. The use of non-standardized methods of evaluation in determining solutions for treating a psychological behavior, leads to administering wrong counseling or medical treatment to the affected. This calls for choosing accurate and validity-oriented evaluation methods. The chosen psychological assessment instrument for substance abuse is Substance Abuse Life Circumstance Evaluation (SALCE) approach, which evaluates the individual’s substance abuse level by investigating diverse aspect of behavior.
The SALCE technique of evaluation, evaluates the respondent’s test mind-set, an evaluation of how suitable responses are to asses the aspects related to substance abuse. The SALCE approach employs the use of personal interview, a psycho-social assessment or a referral. The SALCE assessment tool is easy to administer and offers accurate and reliable facts concerning the facts in a matter of few minutes. The SALCE as method of evaluation in psychology, address the aspects of alcohol and other categories of substance abuse and also deals with areas of attitude and stress encountered in human life. This approach creates the processes and techniques, which would be used in individual interviews processes. It focuses on, and investigates, the various designs of respondent answers, rather than depending wholly upon answers to personal questions in designing the life circumstance evaluation approach. The objective of this psychological instrument is to reach a right intervention level to deliver the needed behavioral change (Plake, 2001).
The evaluation technique presents evaluation information, which can be used in a wide range of decision-making circumstances. The information derived from life circumstance evaluation approach, incorporates some particular identifies, which can be employed in making faster decisions for the benefit of referral and treatment, or education. The psychological substance abuse approach further provides comprehensive information, which is useful in carrying personal interviews. The SALCE also has the capacity to measure many areas of life condition of stress. The information from the assessment serves to increase the substance abuse evaluation; furthermore, it provides meaningful guideline for developing interventions for the behavior. SALCE is a psychological evaluation tool, which is anchored on well-coordinated quality and reliable. The scale offers a comprehensive assessment of both health-linked and non-health-related elements of well-being. The LCE method of determining the aspect of effects of substance abuse has become a very significant evaluation instrument in the field of psychology. The SALCE method as tool of evaluation monitors the effects of substance abuse in an individuals and provides reliable and accurate results. These results are vital in ensuring that the psychologists administer the right medical or counseling solution. The SALCE evaluation technique identifies the behavior and signs, which are linked to substance abuse issue. (Plake, 2001).
“Hit,” in psychological assessment is the possible assessment, which entails how certain psychological assessment techniques can accurately provide reliable and accurate results on a certain behavior under investigation. The number of hits in a certain assessment should be unusually small to ensure the assessment method applied serves the role it was intended. The assessment or the test undertaken in examining certain behavior in an individual should be accurate and should be biased. “Hit” means an increased probability of the assessment method of accurately succeed in detecting a given behavior under study (Kristen, 2011). The “miss” increases the sensitivity of the assessment method thus making it applicable in many studies of behavior. This will ensure that the method used is reliable and accurate. On the other hand,” miss,” is the ability of an assessment technique to fail or fall short of expected standards in assessing behavior in an individual.
” Miss,” in assessment, while investigating behavior, fails to deliver the expected results because the number of times devoted to studying of behavior, many of the studies fails to deliver while more fails. This, in turn, means that the results provided by the applied assessment are not accurate and lack sensitivity. The “miss” means that, in a given assessment, there are many errors, which indicate that the evaluation method used is biased and inaccurate. “Miss “means that the assessment method fails to detect the behavior under study. False positive errors, which is the ability of an assessment method to label wrongly a certain disorder to an individual, but in the real sense, they are not suffering from that behavior. This means that the assessment method will provide inaccurate results thus means that assessment method is inaccurate and lack the element of sensitivity. On the other hand, false negative errors in a given assessment method investigating behavior, identifies the wrong behavior and makes the actual behavior of an individual. The expected behavior will be identified as wrong and makes the wrong or the unexpected behavior look right (Kristen, 2011).
In the Life Circumstance Evaluation (LCE) approach, “hit” means that there are high chances that this method will determine the right behavior on individual who are involved in addiction on substance abuse. The “hit” indicates that in the number of studies done, a majority of it will deliver the actual behavior on drug abuse. This will make the LCE method remarkably accurate and reliable method bin studying the addiction on substance abuse. This means that the higher the number of “hits” the higher the chances the LCE method will be accurate and reliable. “Hit” increases the probability the LCE method will be successful in studying the behavior as a result of substance abuse hence enabling the psychologists to make accurate and valid results based on the assessment results from LCE assessment method.
It means also means that the element of bias in the LCE method is minimized. In this instance, the number of successful s studies was more than failed studies in the LCE assessment method. The “miss, “on the other hand, minimizes the profanities that the study will identify the expected behavior resulting from addiction of substances by individuals. “Miss” means that most of the number of the studies employed by LCE in examining behavior, which arise from the use of substance, is unusually low thus making the results inaccurate or lack precision. This means that LCE’s method registered more failures than successes on the studies undertaken. Consequently, because there are more failures than successes in studying the behavior from addiction on substance, it means the LCE is biased in studying behavior (Plake, 2001).
False positive error in LCE assessment method on investigating the effect of addiction due to substance abuse, will diagnose individuals under study as being affected by drugs. However, this is not the case. This error arises when the LCE assessment approach, identify those suffering from addiction due to substance abuse as being okay. This also means that those who are affected by addiction of substance abuse will be identified as suffering from addiction and, on the other hand, those affected by addiction will be identified as not suffering. This will lead to bias and inaccuracy of the LCE as a measurement technique in studying a behavior on addiction problem. This will lead to administering wrong diagnosis and treatment by the psychologists. This will make the LCE’s method fall short of the expected measurement standards on study of behavior (Plake, 2001).
The false negative aspect on the LCE as a tool for evaluation will identify those suffering from behavior as being not suffering from the disorder on substance addiction. This error makes those who are not suffering from substance addiction to show that they are not suffering from the addiction disorder. This will present the LCE assessment method as insensitive and lacking precision, making the assessment method not suitable for analyzing a given behavior in the society. These errors will also result to not giving the right treatment and diagnosis to the sick individuals, because the errors indicate that the affected are healthy from psychological problems of substance abuse (Kristen, 2011).
References
Kristen, M. (2011). Question Evaluation Methods: Contributing to the Science of Data Quality.
New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Plake, B., & Impara, J. (2001). The fourteenth mental measurements yearbook. Lincoln, NE:
Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.
