Assessment Tools : Assessment Tool Analysis

This instrument was developed by Aaron T. Beck who is a pioneer cognitive therapist. This instrument is commonly called the BDI and was developed in 1961. It was adapted in 1969 and a copyright was obtained in 1979. In developing the instrument Beck used a series of questions which enabled him to adequately measure the strength severity and complexity of depression. There are two versions of BDI, a long version which has 21 questions mostly used to measure specific symptom common with all patient suffering from depression. The shorter version which is composed of seven questions is meant to be used in a primary healthcare setting, with main purpose to evaluate, and monitor changes in of depression.

Depression is pervasive in both mental health and medical settings. In the US, the number of discharges with major depressive disorder as first-listed diagnosis was estimated 395,000 for 2010. The CDC also cites the percentage of persons 12 years of age and older with depression in any 2-week period at an estimated 8% between 2007-2010 (CDC, 2015). The American Psychiatric Associates guidelines on treatment of Major Depressive Disorder recommend the ongoing monitoring of symptoms among patients. Specifically, the APA recommends “systemically assessing symptoms of illness and the effects of treatment”. Consideration is given to matching clinical observations with clinician and/or patient administered rating scale measurements for initial and ongoing evaluation (American Psychiatric Association,

Questioning is a method of testing knowledge by asking the learner a series of questions related to the performance criteria. It is important that the assessor plans the questions beforehand, ensuring that open questions are used, and identifies the means of recording them, whether it be written; voice recorded or videoed. Questioning can be a very useful assessment method used alongside other methods. With observation, in particular, ‘what if’ questions can be used for evidence that might be hard to obtain, for example.

Haydn (2009 cited in Capel et al 2009 page 329) defines assessment as "all those activities which are undertaken by teachers, and others, to measure the effectiveness of teaching and learning".

The reliability of an assessment in a perfect situation should produce the same results if marked by another tutor or if that examiner unknowingly receives the same paper again. If different marks are given the assessment is consequently unreliable and proves that this assessment is subjective.

DAS is recommended for this group as it is reliable and gives correct prediction and outcomes regarding depression. This assessment tool is easy to use; it is a self-report scale consisting of 40 items with each item having a statement and 7-point Likert scale. The questions used in this assessment are direct and easy making it efficient for most individuals' use (de Graaf, Roelofs, & Huibers, 2009). Besides,

1.1 Assessment measures the learner’s progress towards or the completion of, the learning aim and criteria, and can be used at any point during the learning cycle. It can provide information to adapt the delivery to suit the learner’s needs and abilities; a learner may need more help or time on some aspects, or has progressed quicker than planned and requires additional goals. By standardising the assessment process this creates uniformity for all learners.

In both Arbisi (2001) and Farmer’s (2001) review of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) addresses an area of weaknesses was the prior version BDI lacked the diagnostic questions that related to self esteem, energy level, frustration and lack of interest. Both authors agreed that the change was necessary and now aligns with a full assessment of depression signs (Arbisi, 2001), (Farmer, 2001). It appears from the articles that both authors agree on the improvements and easy administration of the assessment.

These assessment tools would make it much easier to gauge the mental state our patients are in when referencing stress level. It would give specific questions to ask about the patient’s current stress level and could be ice breakers into diving deeper into what’s going on with the patient and can be used as building blocks to help with the patient’s issues once and for all; or at least better equip them with coping skills. Using these assessment tools and other like them would equip the nursing staff with the tool needed to provider more holistic care to the patient which is synonymous with Watson’s Theory of caring.

The BDI-II is a 21-item self-report instrument measuring the severity of depression (e.g. looking at symptoms of depression) in adults and adolescents (Beck, et al., 1996).

According to Smarr (2003), the instrument was validated using college students, adult and adolescent psychiatric outpatients (Smarr, 2003). Today, the BDI-II is widely used for those patients as well as normal populations. According to Wang & Gorenstein (2013), the BDI-II can be easily adapted in most clinical settings for detecting major depression and recommending a suitable intervention (Wang & Gorenstein, 2013). Thus, in health care settings the BDI-II has been BDI-II has been expanding in practice in the pathologically ill to assess depressive states that occur at high prevalence (Wang & Gorenstein, 2013).

Practice development is a process of providing care to the patient that leads to direct measurable improvement in care by identifying an issue providing effective care of service and creating a scenario for feedback of previous interventions. It is more focused on patient centered care. In this case study, I am going to explore an issue medication error which is one of the hindrance for practice development. While defining medication errors, it is the unwanted event carried out by health professional or patient providing the wrong medicine for the use which my harm and become hazardous for health. In hospital settings, it is frequently occurring because of patient identification error.

It has been established that there are at present no adequate forms of preventing CIPN (Cavaletti, 2014). Additionally, CIPN is often under-rated and under-reported particularly as patients do not like to miss treatments (Stubblefield et al., 2009). Therefore, comprehensive evaluations using standardized and sensitive assessment tools to prevent severe neurotoxicity are a critical step for early intervention. According to Stubblefield et al. (2012), it is essential a baseline assessment including any preexisting neuropathy and predisposing factors, such as diabetes, be performed prior to initiation of treatment. This baseline assessment should include not only subjective symptoms, but assessment of strength, reflexes and

Evidence needs to be authentic and actually related to the performance of the learner being assessed and not that of another learner instead.

The Beck Depression Inventory is a self-administered test, administered in a group setting or individually, that measures the severity of depression symptoms and attitudes of depression (pg 1 of manual). The revised Beck Depression Inventory was specifically designed to assess the severity of depression in clinically diagnosed patients. However, the revised Beck Depression Inventory was not specifically developed to be used as a screening instrument in normal populations or to reflect any specific theory of depression. Although the BDI is oftentimes used for screening in normal populations, it should be used with caution because high BDI scores do not necessarily indicated depression. This provides an indication of the level of intensity a patient’s depression is for the past week including the day of administration for clinicians.