Assessment in Health Psychology presents and discusses the best and most appropriate assessment methods and instruments for all specific areas that are central for health psychologists. It also describes the conceptual and methodological bases for assessment in health psychology, as well the most important current issues and recent progress in methods. A unique feature of this book, which brings together leading authorities on health psychology assessment, is its emphasis on the bidirectional link between theory and practice. Assessment in Health Psychology is addressed to masters and doctoral students in health psychology, to all those who teach health psychology, to researchers from other disciplines, including clinical psychology, health promotion, and public health, as well as to health policy makers and other healthcare practitioners. This latest volume in the series Psychological Assessment – Science and Practice provides a thorough and authoritative record of the best available assessment tools and methods in health psychology, making it an invaluable resource both for students and academics as well as for practitioners in their daily work.
This Very Short Introduction explores the concept of measurement, its mathematical underpinnings, and its wide range of application from the sciences and social sciences to economics and commerce
Research Methods in Occupational Health Psychology: Measurement, Design, and Data Analysis provides a state-of-the-art review of current issues and best practices in the science of Occupational Health Psychology. Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) is a multidisciplinary and rapidly growing area of research and it is difficult or impossible for researchers to keep up with developments in all of the fields where scholars conduct OHP science. This book will help OHP scholars improve their own research by translating recent innovations in methodology into sets of concrete recommendations that will help scholars improve their own research as well as their training of future researchers.
Surgery and pharmaceuticals are not the only effective procedures we have to improve our health. The natural human tendency to care for fellow humans, to support them with social networks, has proven to be a powerful treatment as well. As a result, the areas of application for social support intervention have expanded dramatically during the past 20 years. As these areas have expanded, so too has the literature on the theory and measurement of social support. Yet, the literature has focussed on very particular areas. Investigators in the social sciences have mainly focused on the protection that social support confers in the context of stressful life events and transitions, whereas studies in the health sciences have concentrated on the effects of social networks and supports on population mortality and morbidity. Although no single theoretical framework has been widely accepted, there is consensus that both the psychological sense of support and actual expressions of support play critical roles in maintaining health and well being. This book is a state-of-the-art resource for the selection and development of strategies for social support assessment and intervention. Designed for use by behavioral and medical scientists conducting studies of physical illness, psychological adjustment, and psychiatric illness in human populations, this volume presents a broad conceptual framework addressing the role of social support in mental and physical health. The book is divided into four sections. The first provides some historical context as well as a conceptual overview of how social support might influence mental and physical health. The second discusses techniques for measuring social networks and support, and the third addresses the design of different types of support interventions. The final section presents some general comments on the volume and its implications for social support research and intervention. This resource is meant to aid researchers in understanding the conceptual criteria on which measurement and intervention decisions should be made when studying the relations between social support and health. Furthermore, the information provided on both measurement and intervention will be valuable to practitioners interested in designing and evaluating prevention and treatment initiatives. Sponsored by the Fetzer Institute as a follow up to their successful 1995 publication, Measuring Stress, this book will provide the most up to date research on the effects of social support interventions on physical and mental health.
For student courses, this book will enhance the understanding of control theory and its relevance to health behaviour change and health care interventions. In addition, it will aid conceptual clarity and measurement for those wishing to design research based on the concept of control."--Jacket.
Designed to serve as a primary reference source for researchers and students interested in expanding their research to consider a biopsychosocial approach, this book provides a thorough, state-of-the-art, and user-friendly coverage of basic techniques for measurement of physiological variables in health psychology research.
Although best known for experimental methods, social psychology also has a strong tradition of measurement. This volume seeks to highlight this tradition by introducing readers to measurement strategies that help drive social psychological research and theory development. The books opens with an analysis of the measurement technique that dominates most of the social sciences, self-report. Chapter 1 presents a conceptual framework for interpreting the data generated from self-report, which it uses to provide practical advice on writing strong and structured self-report items. From there, attention is drawn to the many other innovative measurement and data-collection techniques that have helped expand the range of theories social psychologists test. Chapters 2 through 6 introduce techniques designed to measure the internal psychological states of individual respondents, with strategies that can stand alone or complement anything obtained via self-report. Included are chapters on implicit, elicitation, and diary approaches to collecting response data from participants, as well as neurological and psychobiological approaches to inferring underlying mechanisms. The remaining chapters introduce creative data-collection techniques, focusing particular attention on the rich forms of data humans often leave behind. Included are chapters on textual analysis, archival analysis, geocoding, and social media harvesting. The many methods covered in this book complement one another, such that the full volume provides researchers with a powerful toolset to help them better explore what is "social" about human behavior.
The success of the Apgar score demonstrates the astounding power of an appropriate clinical instrument. This down-to-earth book provides practical advice, underpinned by theoretical principles, on developing and evaluating measurement instruments in all fields of medicine. It equips you to choose the most appropriate instrument for specific purposes. The book covers measurement theories, methods and criteria for evaluating and selecting instruments. It provides methods to assess measurement properties, such as reliability, validity and responsiveness, and interpret the results. Worked examples and end-of-chapter assignments use real data and well-known instruments to build your skills at implementation and interpretation through hands-on analysis of real-life cases. All data and solutions are available online. This is a perfect course book for students and a perfect companion for professionals/researchers in the medical and health sciences who care about the quality and meaning of the measurements they perform.
