Should our field push for more informant-report personality measures in addition to self-report?

[Rivi]

Hello everyone,

Given the limits of self-report measures, do you think the future of personality assessment (i.e., MMPI, PAI, MCMI, etc.) would benefit from including more other/informant report measures, similar to the BASC parent and teacher reports? The informant (spouse, parent, etc.) report creates a set of logistical and measurement difficulties, and these measures would have to focus more on behaviors than on thoughts/feelings. However, this may be a potentially useful resource that our field is not tapping into. I am not suggesting that we replace the self-report, rather have an additional and optional informant report to tap many of the same constructs. What are your thoughts on this?

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[Ollie123]

I think a lot depends on context (e.g. client, nature of presenting problem, reason they are presenting, etc.). Aside from situations where the individual may be motivated not to present honestly (e.g. forensics) or may not be capable (e.g. young children, older adults) I honestly don't see that much benefit coming from this. Particularly given personality is not a behavioral construct (albeit it may have behavioral manifestations)

Truthfully, I think the push will be towards briefer models and more efficient assessments. Given the time involvement, I see collateral reports becoming less common rather than more common in the future, aside from the scenarios I already mentioned. Of course, there will always be exceptions and situations that call for it but I wouldn't expect this to take off anytime in the near future.

 

[WisNeuro]

In at least neuropsych assessment contexts, personality measures are becoming much less common. They are long, and they don't really contribute much to our conceptualization and recommendations. In the VA they are pretty much just another validity measure to use.

We do, however, like to get collateral informant responses to many behavioral things (e.g., i/ADL's, behavior change, mood) as those are more informative given the lack of insight in some neurological conditions.

In terms of the future of personality assessment, it needs to go the way that we are trending in neuropsych. It needs to demonstrate an ability to relate to appreciable outcomes in some way.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

In at least neuropsych assessment contexts, personality measures are becoming much less common.

Personality measures can be quite useful in certain contexts of neuropsychological assessment, though in my setting (acute in-pt rehab & out-pt neuropsych) I'm more interested in how the person views their world and themselves. I found the BHI-2 does a pretty darn good job of getting at useful information that I can use in my reports to inform my recommendations and offer something more than a straight personality measure. It also is less threatening to my patients because it asks about health/medical things and only has a small portion of more psych-specific questions.

 

[WisNeuro]

Definitely in certain contexts, just not most of the ones that I am in. An MMPI-2 or RF code type doesn't do much for me in the context of a dementia eval. Likewise, we've found little utility for it in a mTBI context outside of adding a few more validity indicators.

 

[JeyRo]

There are a few brief measures that either directly or indirectly tap personality. PACL is one I like, one page, low cognitive load, normed on a non-psychiatric sample, I use it frequently with my VA population. STS clinician rating form (Beutler et al) which I haven't used, is basically an informant-report measure that indexes (at least some) dispositional traits. I'm sure there are others.

I like brief personality measures and I wish there were more informant-report versions I could think of too, particularly ones that have validity with dementia populations. Helps sometimes to give nursing some guidance when they have a profile on their patients (e.g., should nursing be more directive or more nondirective in their approaches, should they push patients towards more social activities in large groups or encourage more 1:1 or solitary activities, etc). I have a soft spot for personality testing. Not a neuropsychologist here though (although I do play one on TV)

 

[smalltownpsych]

Collateral information is good to have in many assessments, but that is not the same as a report inventory. For me, It's like the old Dragnet guy used to say, "Just the facts, maam." When we stray too much into opinion and conjecture, the validity goes down. A good example for me are substance abuse evals. I have seen plenty of them and they don't seem to tell me much, but when a patient is arrested or brought to the ER and their BAL is .35 and they are still walking and talking, that tells me a lot more. Blood alcohol and police involvement are facts, I can work with that. That is why I prefer cognitive assessments, they actually measure something. You can't fake it, at least on the upside, and it's pretty easy to detect someone faking the downside.