Bruce W. Vieweg

Using a quality of life measure to investigate outcome in outpatient treatment of severely impaired psychiatric clients

Subjective quality of life (SQL) reports in mental health settings are used with increasing frequency despite some theoretical and psychometric concerns. The authors report on 1,291 SQL reports from two assessment/casework centers serving indigent mental health outpatients in the St. Louis Metropolitan area, and a subsample of 156 clients who reported their SQL at admission and 1 year later. Standardization data for these clients are presented, as well as information on SQL domains and the internal consistency of the scale. It was found that symptom and adjustment scales comprise close to 40% of the SQL scale variance. In the 1-year follow-up subsample, the overall scale and six domains showed small but significant differences between admission and 1-year follow-up results.

Psychological screening inventory: A comprehensive review

The Psychological Screening Inventory is a relatively brief, easy to administer and score screening instrument that was designed for use by a wide range of professional mental health workers. A comprehensive review of the empirical literature suggests moderate reliability, generally stable factor structure, and adequate validity, particularly for use with college undergraduates, with reformatory and prison inmates, and with psychiatric outpatients.

Computer Generated Diagnosis

A search for more reliable psychiatric diagnosis has been largely responsible for the development of an increasing number of symptom checklists, clinical rating scales, structured or semistructured diagnostic interviews, and computer algorithms to process such information as diagnostic aids. The specific body of literature in the 1950s and 60s which suggested that many clinical judgments could be made with information about relatively few variables, combined in relatively simple ways (see, e.g., Goldberg, 1968), and that actuarial (or “mechanical”) prediction models could virtually replicate many clinical judgments (see, e.g., Meehl, 1954; Sawyer, 1966; Sines, 1970), was also clearly influential in promoting computer diagnosis research.

Computer consultation for emotional crises: An expert system for “non-experts”

Abstract This article describes an expert computerized consultation system for assisting a non-mental-health-expert assess and treat emotional and behavioral emergencies in a remote area. It discusses some of the issues and limitations of this system, and suggests that the intended educational/instructional aspects of expert systems may make them more appropriate for, and potentially better accepted by “non-experts.”

Computer-supported assessment and consultation for emotional crises in a submarine environment

This is a preliminary report on the development of a computer-assisted consultation program for the assessment and treatment of emotional and behavioral problems on board nuclear submarines. It discusses the early development of a brief structured interview, some of the guiding principles utilized in the development of this consultation system, and rules which relate interview profiles and corpsmen observations to treatment recommendations.