In primary care settings, it’s essential to quickly identify health beliefs and practices that may impact an individual’s health functioning. The Multidimensional Health Profile™–Health Functioning form (MHP™-H), designed for use in health-related settings, is now available for administration and scoring on PARiConnect.  

The MHP-H consists of 69 items that provide information on five major areas of concern: adult health history, response to illness, health habits, health care utilization, and health beliefs and attitudes. Using the MHP-H can help you identify patients who may need more follow-up care, support, or assistance to  improve their long-term health outcomes.

Psychological concerns can influence a patient’s vulnerability to physical illness, perceptions of their symptoms, patterns reporting, and compliance with medical advice. Furthermore, some individuals overuse medical services. A measure like the MHP-H can help you determine who may benefit from psychosocial interventions, preventive efforts, educational programs, and support groups to improve functioning and reduce health care costs.

Research supports the use of the MHP-H for gastric bypass evaluation; it can be used to determine if dysfunctional attitudes and health-compromising habits may influence recovery or use of services.

Learn more about the MHP-H on PARiConnect now!

This week’s blog was contributed by Melissa Milanak, PhD. Melissa is a licensed clinical psychologist and internationally recognized academic. She has extensive clinical experience providing therapy and conducting assessments with a diverse array of patient populations. 

Learning more about assessment products can improve our ability to provide the best care for our clients, patients, and students. However, continuing education can also directly relate to other professional duties, such as keeping our license current and educating trainees. 

For example, when your job is to train future providers, having accurate, easily accessible resources not only saves time but also engages trainees in new and exciting ways. PAR’s Training Portal features product-specific videos, resources, and practical applications that can provide hours of didactic support for trainees. These tools are also ideal for established providers who want to learn more about a new product or get a refresher on an instrument they might not have used recently. PAR’s Training Portal is completely free of charge and available on demand, 24/7. New content is added regularly, so it’s good practice to check back frequently for information relevant to your practice. 

You can easily put products into practice using the 40% discount we offer on training materials that provide hands-on, practical experience. With PAR’s University Partnership Program (UPP), you can determine the tests that best fit your syllabus and get access to concierge support to design your own training (including PowerPoint slides, free test kits, and products), along with student discounts and faculty research discounts. 

In addition, as a licensed provider, you must receive continuing education (CE). Though requirements can seem arduous and tedious, it’s important for you to continually learn about the tools and practices that can best help your patients and clients—and it can often be an exciting way to learn about what’s innovative and new in the industry. Even gold-standard assessments are updated and renormed as the literature grows and new insights are uncovered. The key as a provider is to balance relying on the assessments we know and love and have served us well (and helped many of our patients and clients over the years) while also keeping current with updates and edits, new product offerings, and useful new applications of our reliable tools! 

PARtalks, our webinar platform, offers a vast array of CE sessions on products and applications. Featuring experts from a variety of backgrounds and topic areas, as well as insight from product authors and knowledgeable PAR staff, our webinars cover many topics relevant to psychological practice. Check out PARtalks frequently to see what webinars are coming up and which offer CE credits. And if you miss a live session, head back to the PAR Training Portal to view a recording. 

Whether you are working with trainees or looking to further your own education on a topic, PAR offers a number of options to help you! 

This week’s blog was contributed by Carrie Champ Morera, PsyD, NCSP, LP. Carrie is a licensed school psychologist and the lead project and content director at PAR. 

The increased use of telehealth—including teleassessment—has changed psychological assessment practices. Although many of us have adjusted our assessment practices to keep up with the times, we have to keep in mind that, when engaging in teleassessment, our practices must be ethical—just as if we were providing in-person assessment services. 

Here are 10 ethical considerations for practitioners to consider when providing services via teleassessment. 

1. Obtain informed consent. Just as you would do with in-person assessment practices, obtain informed consent prior to providing telehealth services. Informed consent is more than a form—it’s a process. 

2. Train and practice. Carefully review standardization procedures for the assessment. Practice the assessments several times using the technology and platforms with which you plan to administer them. 

3. Consult with colleagues. Talk about ethical dilemmas with colleagues, consult the literature, and continue to update your ethical guidelines. It’s important to lean on one another for practice, support, and guidance. 

4. Follow the publisher’s guidelines. PAR developed a statement on telehealth that addresses test security and measurement concerns. The integrity and security of the tests must always be maintained. 

5. Keep forms and data secure. Make sure paper protocols and electronic forms are stored securely. Consider password protections, encryption, and malware protection and keep backups. 

6. Establish and maintain professional boundaries. It can be tempting to relax your professional boundaries in a telehealth setting. Dress professionally, reduce distractions, and set clear expectations with your clients. 

7. Consider cultural factors. Consider the implications for clients from traditionally marginalized backgrounds or various socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds or those with less computer experience. 

8. Document the use of digital and remote assessments. Include a statement in your report that assessment was conducted via telehealth. Record any technical issues, and disclose any modifications or alterations of standardized procedures. 

9. Consider the psychological effects of the pandemic in digital and remote assessment. We’ve seen a general increase in anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and isolation. Go beyond scores and evaluate individual item responses. Stressors all contribute to these psychological effects, perhaps now more than ever. 

10. Take advantage of PAR resources. We have many teleassessment resources and a wide selection of products available for administration, scoring, and/or interpretation on PARiConnect—and we are always adding more! Need to brush up on your teleassessment skills? Check out this video from PAR’s Director of Customer Support, Daniel McFadden, or visit the PAR Training Portal for more insight. You can use PAR products via telehealth technology while retaining the integrity and security of the measures. PAR has several tools available to help you navigate this challenge. 

Digital options to help us complete the work we do are increasingly important as digital interactions become more common in psychological assessment. We at PAR are committed to helping you serve your clients and recognize your increasing need for digital materials. Digital assessment options (like online and remote products, e-Stimulus Books, and e-Manuals) offer several benefits, including improved flexibility and support for your practice—whether you work in school, hospital, private practice, or other settings. Digital solutions can also provide increased accessibility and security in addition to environmental benefits like reduced use of paper. 

We want to provide you with more options for test administration (e.g., on-screen vs. paper-and-pencil) while reducing the number of materials you need for administration and addressing concerns about hygiene with printed materials. We are expanding our library of e-Manuals, e-Stimulus Books, and remote assessment tools and adding more products offering administration, scoring, and interpretation via PARiConnect. We now offer more than 100 e-Manuals, which are easily accessed from our new Digital Library in PARiConnect. These digital versions of PAR professional manuals are also downloadable (limited to a single user and device). See our full list of e-Manuals. 

Our In-Person e-Stimulus Books allow for easy, safer administration of stimuli via tablet and are designed for in-person testing sessions. Convenient and user friendly, these digital tools provide flexibility and confidence in testing and are hygienic and easy to clean. Visit parinc.com/e-stim to see what’s new. We also offer remote tests designed to be administered via videoconferencing. Learn more about our remote assessment solutions. 

Finally, our online assessment platform, PARiConnect, allows you to administer and score tests from most internet-connected devices. Designed in strict adherence with HIPAA, this flexible tool is adaptable for any organization, from small, solo practitioners to large, multilocation groups. More than 75 assessment tools are currently available, and we are continually adding new products. New to PARiConnect? Get three free uses just for signing up. 

No matter your setting, we have a digital solution that can help take your practice beyond paper and pencil! 

This week’s blog was contributed by Maegan Sady, PhD, ABPP-CN. In addition to being a licensed psychologist and board-certified neuropsychologist, Maegan is a project director in PAR’s research and development department. She worked as a pediatric neuropsychologist for nearly a decade before joining PAR. 

Psychological assessment allows for three types of clinical decisions: diagnosis, treatment planning, and measuring change over time. Assessment involves integrating information from multiple sources—tests, rating scales, observations, and interviews—to answer a given referral question and provide recommendations. 

To best serve clients and patients, providers should engage in evidence-based assessment (EBA; related terms include evidence-based medicine, evidence-based practice, empirically based assessment, and evidence-based instruments). EBA relies on scientific knowledge to help providers make clinical decisions. Although EBA has been a longstanding goal in psychology, clear documentation of EBA standards has been in place for only the past 15–20 years. 

Choosing reliable, valid assessment tools is the foundation of EBA. Basic psychometric strengths include representative normative samples, strong internal consistency, sound construct validity, and test–retest statistics (built-in change metrics are a bonus!). Because validity applies to the use of a test for a specific presenting problem in a particular individual, studies using discriminant function analyses and base rates identify the clinical utility of tests for given populations. 

To use an EBA approach, ask: What tools can I use to rule the proposed diagnosis in or out? For which related conditions do I need to screen? What else do I need to know about this client to recommend an appropriate treatment? Which tests are sensitive to change in the constructs being targeted? 

Increasingly more tools are available to providers to address real and perceived barriers to practicing EBA. Special issues of journals are devoted to using EBA for various conditions, books contain systematic reviews of instruments, and professional organizations have position papers on topics including serial neuropsychological assessment and effort/malingering. 

To keep up with advances in research relevant to your practice, create Google Scholar or PubMed alerts to generate periodic emails (use search terms like “evidence-based assessment,” “meta-analysis,” or “systematic review,” along with key disorders) and organize the literature in a free citation manager. For an informal approach, follow known researchers and EBA gurus and join social media groups for your clinical interests. Subscribe to professionally focused podcasts and queue up relevant episodes for your next commute, walk, or hammock session. 

At PAR, we aim to propel the growth of EBA by working with our customers to make it easier to search for information about tests and to collaborate on clinical data repositories. Visit the PAR data collection page for more information. 

Browse parinc.com/resources for training and supplemental materials, put our products to the test in your clinical research, and reach out to us if you have data on clinical samples. Though the initial adoption of EBA practices takes time and effort, you’ll see the results via more precise decision making and buy-in from clients. It’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon! 

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop in individuals who have experienced or witnessed life-threatening events such as domestic terrorism, military combat, natural disasters, serious accidents, or physical or sexual assault in adult or childhood. While commonly associated with members of the military, PTSD can affect anyone who has been exposed to these events.  

The purpose behind PTSD Awareness Day is to help more people understand the scope and impact of this disorder and to provide those affected with paths to healing.  

With the number of people (12 million) experiencing PTSD, we know your time is limited and your patient demand is growing. There are several trauma resources that can help you quickly assess symptoms in children, adolescents, adults, and veterans. 

PAR offers several instruments and tools to help you help people struggling with mental health and PTSD—including the TSI-2, TSCC, TSCYC, DAPS, and PSS. Plus, we have several other resources available to you:  

School assessment and solutions. If you are a school psychologist or practitioner who works in schools, we offer solutions that are specific to you. Visit our school assessment resources page to learn more. 

Healthcare resources. If you work in a clinical setting helping patients or in an educational setting working with students, PAR Healthcare can provide free training on new instruments (that can also be used in your curriculum). For more information, visit the PAR Healthcare page. 

Continuing education. We offer free webinars and continuing education content through a variety of sessions relevant to the field of psychological assessment and practice. Visit our PARtalks homepage, and join us for an upcoming session. 

Free training. We offer free online training on the PAR Training Portal. Our online training offers administration and scoring guidance for many PAR products (including those that evaluate trauma and PTSD), along with development and normative information. Sign up for free or log in today. 

Remote administration. PARiConnect is the most reliable platform in the industry and is constantly evolving with the addition of important new features, such as the Digital Library and interactive bell curve. Sign up for free or log in today. 

One of PAR’s core values is to give back to the community. While we participate in so many special events during the year, this week we are focusing on some of the activities we participate in and the organizations we support on a regular basis.

Each Wednesday, volunteers from PAR take part in delivering nourishing meals to homebound people through our Meals on Wheels of Tampa route. Meals on Wheels of Tampa serves more than 800 individuals, providing them with so much more than hot food—deliveries also provide human connection and a way to live independently. Learn more about how you can get involved. 

Once every eight weeks, OneBlood’s Big Red Bus visits PAR headquarters! Every 2 seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. Generous blood donors are the only source of blood for patients in need of a blood transfusion, and the team at PAR are happy to roll up our sleeves to help those in need.

Each quarter, PAR partners with Feeding Tampa Bay to support their Mega-Pantry program. Held several times per week in various locations around Tampa, the Mega-Pantry distributes fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, dry goods, and more in a drive-through-style event to those in our community who are experiencing food insecurity. Feeding Tampa Bay is dedicated to eradicating hunger in the Tampa Bay region by 2025. For more information, visit Feeding Tampa Bay.

We are so grateful to be able to give back to our community with our time, energy, and resources. To learn more about what we are doing to make a difference in the Tampa Bay area, visit our Community PARtners page.

For many years, PAR employees have volunteered their time to serve as part of a local Meals on Wheels of Tampa route. Each week, a rotating group of PAR employees deliver fresh, nutritious meals to homebound individuals. For many of the individuals visited, delivery drivers provide more than just food—they provide human connection and a way to live independently. 

Meals on Wheels of Tampa was founded by Gloria Fuentes in 1975. A Tampa resident, Fuentes was caring for two homebound relatives who lived on opposite sides of the city. She recognized the need to assist not only her family but also others who were in similar circumstances. Originally, the organization delivered meals to 14 people—today, they serve more than 800 individuals who depend on caring volunteers to deliver nourishing meals to their door. Meals on Wheels of Tampa also offers programs that deliver pet food, hurricane supplies, and more. They now offer diabetic and renal menus for their homebound meal program recipients with dietary restrictions. 

If you live in the Tampa area, Meals on Wheels is looking for more volunteers to help eliminate hunger, isolation, and loss of independence for the homebound in our community. Learn more about how you can get involved here. Outside of Tampa? Meals On Wheels of Tampa is a proud member of Meals on Wheels of America—find a way to give back in your community! 

June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, and it’s a great time to shed light on the impact of Alzheimer’s in our communities. About 6.5 million Americans age 65 years and older—or 1 in 9 people in this age group—live with Alzheimer’s dementia (i.e., dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease). This number is expected to grow as the baby-boom generation ages.  

Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior in primarily older people. Average survival after diagnosis in people age 65 years and older is 4 to 8 years, but some individuals live up to 20 years with the disease. This takes a huge toll on both those living with Alzheimer’s and those who care for them. 

There are many ways to support people in your community who are dealing with the daily effects of Alzheimer’s disease: 

• Learn about the risk factors and incidence rates of Alzheimer’s. Visit alz.org to read facts and figures, find resources for help, and learn about advocacy. 

• “Go purple” in June to raise awareness. Wear purple, turn your Facebook page purple, and share your story on social media using the hashtags #ENDALZ and #GoPurple.  

• Contribute your time or money to organizations that support people living with Alzheimer’s, like the Alzheimer’s Association, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, or a local group.  

For more information about what you can do in June to highlight Alzheimer’s disease, visit https://www.alz.org/abam/overview.asp.   

Looking for products to assess dementia or Alzheimer’s disease? Learn more. 

This week’s blog was contributed by Sierra Iwanicki, PhD. Sierra is a clinical psychologist and project director in the research and development department at PAR. 

In the mid-20th century, humanistic psychology emerged in direct response to perceived limitations of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Contrary to those earlier theories, humanism focused on the individual as a whole person, with the cardinal belief that perceived experiences fundamentally shaped us as human beings. In the 1940s and 1950s, clinicians began to encourage the collaborative use of projective instruments (e.g., drawings, Rorschach, TAT) to develop insight with clients. 

A few decades later, clinicians began to write about the use of psychological assessment within a humanistic frame. Ray A. Craddick criticized the approach of treating a “person primarily as a series of building blocks of traits, factors, habits, etc. [calling] the separation of man into parts…antithetical to both the humanistic tradition and to personality assessment.” Drawing from a phenomenological perspective, researchers like Constance Fischer first wrote about the “testee as a co-evaluator,” and later articulated a model of collaborative, individualized psychological assessment. In subsequent years, clinicians continued to write about the therapeutic benefits and collaborative approaches of assessment. 

In 1993, Stephen Finn coined the term therapeutic assessment to describe a semi-structured, systemized method for using assessment in a collaborative, therapeutic fashion. Since then, he and psychologists like Constance Fischer and others have promoted collaborative methods to conduct assessments. 

According to Finn and colleagues, defining elements of collaborative and therapeutic assessment include: 

• Having respect for clients (e.g., providing them with comprehensible feedback) 

• Taking a relational view of psychological assessment (e.g., acknowledging the vulnerability of clients in the assessment situation) 

• Maintaining a stance of compassion and curiosity rather than judgment and classification (e.g., fully understanding clients in all their complexity, not just summarizing them in terms) 

• Having a desire to help clients directly (e.g., not just providing helpful information to other stakeholders) 

• Taking a special view of tests (e.g., viewing tests as tools and results as ways to understand and help clients) 

• Staying flexible (e.g., conducting a home visit as part of an assessment) 

Fast forward to 2021: A multidisciplinary database search yielded more than 4,000 peer-reviewed journal articles related to psychological assessment as a therapeutic intervention, therapeutic assessment, or collaborative assessment. However, Kamphuis et al. note that the treatment utility of assessment has long been controversial, stipulating a broader view of relevant outcome metrics, more powerful research designs, and use of stepped assessment, taking into account the complexity of the patient’s psychopathology. Nevertheless, there is consensus that therapeutic assessment tends to yield more useful psychological assessment data as well as increase the effectiveness of assessment feedback. 

In fact, a meta-analysis found the therapeutic benefits of individualized feedback following psychological assessment yielded a notable effect size of .42. More recently, a meta-analysis compared well-defined therapeutic assessment compared to other forms of intervention and showed three areas where it was superior: 1) decreasing symptoms (effect size .34), 2) increasing self-esteem (effect size .37), and 3) fostering therapeutic alliance and engagement and satisfaction with treatment (effect size .46). Overall, 

research has shown that collaborative and therapeutic assessment is effective for adults, couples, children, adolescents, and families. According to the Therapeutic Assessment Institute, more than 35 studies have demonstrated that collaborative/therapeutic assessment is generally effective at improving outcomes for a wide range of clients with diverse clinical problems across various settings. 

The Therapeutic Assessment Institute was formed in 2009 to promote and coordinate training in Therapeutic Assessment. Learn more.