The validation of psychometric instruments: a key mental health issue

Abstract

The creation, validation, and adaptation of scales, structured interviews, and other psychometric instruments form a fundamental part of current psychiatry. Instruments should be useful not only to be applied and to improve processes of diagnosis and treatment, but also to help the progress of the science itself. In this sense, in order for research in psychiatry to move forward, it is important to make use of standardized instruments that allow both mental alterations and changes that manifest themselves through the application of pharmacological or behavioral treatments to be assessed, classified, and quantified. However, psychometrics is an area which for many years has been only partially dealt with by applied psychiatry and psychology, which have focused on aspects related to clinical diagnosis and treatment.