The New York Times – February 25th, 2020
“Mental-Health Researchers Ask: What Is ‘Recovery’?“
There are many ways to measure mental distress. But it’s far harder to predict, or even describe, the improvement that often follows.
A thoughtful piece in NY Times last week speaks to the challenges in capturing – measuring — someone’s recovery. There are two primary features of a good measure — reliability (you can capture the same findings consistently (time/rater/items) and validity (you are measuring what you think you are measuring) A nicely crafted *standardized* measure often succeeds with the reliability feature. However, it may miss the boat entirely or partly on the validity aspect of a good measure. The NYT author touches on that challenge when it comes to capturing recovery. It is so personal that standardized assessments may struggle with validity — “you wouldn’t pick it up unless you knew how to ask” — in this case, with regard to people’s relationships with auditory hallucinations.
~Lorna
