Essay On Psychological Analysis For Spina Bifida

In the vignette, a 33 years old Caucasian female, Ms. G suffering from Spinal Bifida and evidential difficulties in an academic setting with classmates as well as a struggle with studies, has been selected. Moreover, she has attended various counseling sessions sparsely and was prescribed necessary medicines to reduce the symptomatic prevalence of depression and anxiety. Two objective psychometric tests were administered to her, and they were WAIS-IV and MCMI-III, to assess the intelligence quotient and personality or emotional stability of the client. This article emphasized the problem statement to address mental health issues like problems related to the personality and intelligence of Ms. G suffering from Spina Bifida.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is an advanced intelligence measuring scale implemented to evaluate cognitive ability, occupational difficulty, and lower academic performance. Certified mental healthcare organizations or psychologists can administer this test to an individual and conduct it to evaluate verbal intelligence and performance intelligence (Abdelhamid, Bassiouni & Gómez-Benito, 2021). This intelligence quotient measuring globally administrable and popular test mostly addresses to determine the difficulties of people with psycho-educational disability, suffering from organic dysfunction, neuropsychiatric disorders, and giftedness (Riedel et al. 2021). Mostly this test is conducted on patients with intellectual or cognitive issues as well as difficulties in executive functioning above 16 years.

This intelligence evaluating scale is highly consistent and well-established, and the reliability from test-retest administration is high, along with a high inert-scorer coefficient. This scale is effective for measuring intelligence as well as working memory. As WAIS-IV measures people's intelligence, the average intelligence ranges from 90 to 109, and people above this IQ level are highly average and beyond (Mensa, 2022). On the other hand, people who belong to the IQ level of 69 and below can be considered intellectually deficient. No significant relationship could be found between cultural influence and the patient's IQ. The high level of reliability of this test is effective in measuring the intellectual ability of an adult individual. As this test is globally accepted and considered a standardized measure of intelligence, it can be determined that it has higher reliability and validity.

Securing the credentials, assuring the patient's consent before administering the test, and administering a highly reliable and valid test on the patient are the significant areas to induce ethical issues. Moreover, taking due permission before using the data in other professional areas, accurately scoring as well as interpreting and even communicating the actual result with elaboration to the patients are also the other major ethical considerations to be strictly maintained (Yadav, 2017). Interpreting the test results by monitoring the scaled score and associating it with the percentile rank of the patients concerning the population can help to identify the intelligence deficit and clarify the areas of difficulty.

Million Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III) is an objective test to evaluate and determine personality traits as well as identify the associated disorder. In this vignette, this scale was administered to the patient with respect to address the criticalities of the major concerning areas related to the emotional state of the patient (Dadfar & Lester, 2017). Psychologists with adequate knowledge and clinical license can administer this to patients with disturbing personality traits and emotional instability. Around 175 objective questions comprising the test are applicable for people above 18 years and determine 15 styles of personality. The reliability of the test-retest format, as well as the validity of this objective test, is found to be very high as it provides accurate test results focusing on the major concerns of the test administration. As this test is globally accepted and considered a standardized measure of intelligence, it can be determined that it has higher reliability and validity.

 

The test results are categorized as associated with its base rate (BR), which indicates that scoring 75 is labeled as normal, whereas people scoring above 75 can be identified as–risk as well as scoring above 85 can be denoted as clinically significant. Geographical and cultural influences in developing dependency, abusive substance behavior, paranoia, and avoidance can be identified as predominant areas to have an impact (Schneider et al., 2021). Major ethical issues of this test can arise by not maintaining the privacy of credentials and data as well as not persistently retaining the security of the collected test results (Yadav, 2017). The test results are interpreted based on the scaled scores collected after administering to the patients to derive major personality traits or emotional difficulties.

Concerning the vignette, Ms. G, a 30 years old Caucasian female, is administered two significant objective tests to measure her intelligence and personality traits. The average score of these two tests was mentioned in their respective explanatory sections. From the test results of WAIS-IV, it can be interpreted that the patient is having difficulties in perceptual reasoning index and processing speed index, as can be identified by the scores of 82 and 81, respectively. Lack of perceptual reasoning index or PRI refers to the inability to comprehend visual information as well as noncompeting to solve abstract issues. Besides, below average processing speed index indicates a slower mental processing inability to use visual and graphomotor skills. Through the MCMI-III objective test, the major concerning areas of the patient's scores are desirability, schizoid personality traits, depressive and major depressive traits, dependency traits, and masochistic traits are at risk with a score of 75 and more. In addition, the patient's anxiety level is clinically significant, with a score of 85. Thus it can be deduced that the patient, Ms. G, can be diagnosed with anxiety disorder and depression concerning the test results.

 

Both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy will be beneficial for this patient to improve cognitive ability as well as cope with depression and anxiety. Therapeutic interventions can help the patient increase acceptance, which is a beneficial way of showing the test results and elaborating the interpretation (Abbasi, Shariati & Tajikzadeh, 2018). As the tests could only be administered once, the results cannot be reliable enough to diagnose the patient's condition. Moreover, the MCMI III is a self-reporting objective psychological test that can encourage biased response patterns leading to distorted test outcomes.

 

Abbasi, F., Shariati, K., & Tajikzadeh, F. (2018). Comparison of the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy and neurofeedback: Reducing anxiety symptoms. Archives of Neuroscience, 5(3).

 

 

Abdelhamid, G. S. M., Bassiouni, M. G. A., & Gómez-Benito, J. (2021). Assessing cognitive abilities using the wais-iv: An item response theory approach. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(13), 6835.

 

 

Dadfar, M., & Lester, D. (2017). Prevalence of personality disorders and clinical syndromes using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III (MCMI-III) in an Iranian clinical sample. IJBECS, 3, 36-47.

 

 

Lindsay, G. (2019). Ethical and legal matters. Psychology II, 2, 1-4.

 

 

Mensa. (2022). What is IQ? | Mensa International. Mensa.org. Retrieved on 2 August 2022, from https://www.mensa.org/iq/what-iq.

 

 

Riedel, D., Hagman, G., Green, D., & Fristedt, S. (2021). Cognitive function and performance of everyday activities in adults with spina bifida. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 53(9).

 

 

Schneider, J., Mohr, N., Aliatakis, N., Seidel, U., John, R., Promnitz, G., ... & Kaindl, A. M. (2021). Brain malformations and cognitive performance in spina bifida. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 63(3), 295-302.

 

 

Yadav, P. K. (2017). Ethical issues across different fields of forensic science. Egyptian Journal of forensic sciences, 7(1), 1-6.