Assessment is the process involving the integration of information from diverse sources for the purpose of close analysis. For example, sources of information may include psychological testing, personal and medical history, symptoms, observations, and direct interviews with the client. All psychologists carry out at least some level of assessment before providing services to clients to ensure high-quality service. In particular, psychologists may have simple checklists to assess the overall condition of the client, such as traits and symptoms. Sometimes, psychological assessment is a detailed and complex process done with the purpose of identifying the correct diagnosis, state the level of disability, direct to the proper treatment or evaluate the outcomes achieved as the result of the treatment.
It is possible to say that the purpose of assessment is classification. In other words, psychologists use assessment techniques to place a client in a specifically defined category of people. Classification is very important when an urgent diagnosis should be made to foster the treatment. Classification allows assessing the similarities among clients sharing characteristics of symptoms. Assessment is an attempt to use the tools of psychology to learn facts about the client or inform others about the condition of the patient. In addition, the assessment allows predicting the behavior of clients in the future.
Psychological assessment serves three functions. Firstly, psychological assessment is easy to conduct. Moreover, it is much easier to get information about the client from assessment rather than by clinical interviews. Most patients may not be willing to talk about some matters or unwilling to reveal some information. Assessment allows quick, accurate, and easy information gathering. Secondly, information gathered through assessment is more consistent and accurate than the data obtained from the clinical interview. Assessment is done by therapists to arrive at the diagnosis, to determine the course of treatment, to identify the disability issues, etc. Psychological assessment serves multiple functions. Thirdly, assessment can be done without the knowledge of the patient. During the testing or clinical interview, the client may not be honest or simply unwilling to share information with the therapist. Psychological assessment, on the other side, can be done accurately because the client has no opportunity to lie. Most psychological assessments and tests have several alarm points that got off when the client is trying to lie.
The process of assessment varies among psychologists and therapists. The choice is rather wide as there are numerous scientific assessment tools, and therapists may develop their own procedures and processes. The client does not need to be prepared before the testing. Moreover, the results are more accurate when the client is fully unaware of being assessed. In other words, effective psychological assessment is unnoticed. When the client does not realize being assessed, the therapist or psychologist has an opportunity to gather the most reliable and accurate information to be used for the diagnosis setting or therapy choice.
In conclusion, psychological assessment is one of the most useful tools helping therapists and psychologists make a diagnosis or treatment-related decisions. Assessment should be done before as well as after the treatment. Preliminary treatment is necessary to double-check the diagnosis while the follow-up assessment is done to evaluate the results achieved through treatment. Even though psychological assessment is not legally required, psychologists are strongly encouraged to do it.