CLINICAL ASSESSMENT IN A PROFESSIONAL SETTING: ARE THERE IMPLICATIONS FOR SELF-REPORTS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY?

"In the field of psychological assessment, response biases pose a great problem, and can lead to misleading decisions, with negative impact regardless of the context. Both the underreport of personality characteristics and psychopathological symptoms and the overreport of problems and symptoms are current threats to this field. The clinical context is one on which both response attitudes occur. The clinical-organizational context (where clinical psychology services are provided in the individuals´ professional setting) is very specific, with particularities that have hardly been studied, so little is known about underreporting and overreporting in this type of clinical assessment. This study intends to explore and compare two contexts, clinical and clinical-organizational, in response attitudes and their potential implications on the report of psychopathology. Specifically, this study has three aims: to identify if there are differences between individuals of the two contexts in higher order psychopathology indicators and specific clinical problems; if these differences would be due to response attitudes (i.e., tendency to overreporting and to underreporting), and which are the best scales to differentiate individuals doing overreporting and underreporting in both samples. A total of 516 participants, grouped in two samples, Clinical (n = 277; Mage 41.50, SD 11.54), and Clinical-Organizational (n = 239; Mage 42.92, SD 9.16) were assessed with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 - Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) Validity, Higher-Order and Restructured Clinical scales. The MANOVAS showed significant differences between the two samples in the composite of underreport scales, overreport scales, Higher-Order scales, and Clinical scales, with the clinical-organizational sample having higher underreport levels than the clinical sample, and lower overreport levels, as well as lower symptomology and clinical problems. The correlations pattern between the different sets of scales supports the conclusion that the response attitudes significantly impact the report of psychopathology. The F-r and Fp-r overreport scales, and the K-r underreport scale are the best ones in differentiating the two samples. The results suggest that the professional setting may influence the disclosure of psychological difficulties and problems, thus having impact on psychological assessment."