The status of the Beck inventories (BDI, BAI) in psychology training and practice: A major shift in clinical acceptance

While the Beck Depression Inventory I and II (hereon BDI) have been a mainstay in mental health assessment for many decades, a cursory review of survey‐based “test use” studies in the 1990s finds that the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was not initially a highly ranked test in the assessment of anxiety or psychopathology. To date, a review of the extant literature on the popularity of the Beck inventories in professional psychology training or practice settings has not been systematically analyzed, although Piotrowski and Gallant (Journal of Instructional Psychology, 36, 2009, 84) found the BAI the most visible anxiety scale in the research literature between 2000 and 2005. Yet, quite evident, the field of clinical assessment remains highly competitive with a proliferation of mental health scales and measures introduced, perennially, in both the professional and research literature. In addition, since the mid‐1990s, regulatory restrictions (i.e., managed care directives) on the feasibility of providing multimethod assessment services has also been a potent headwind in professional practice. Thus, historically, the professional acceptance of the BDI and BAI remains somewhat opaque, in terms of degree of usage in both training and practice settings compared to other assessment instruments. Hence, the aim of the current study is to address this gap in the literature. To that end, the author identified, through an extensive literature review, survey‐based studies with reg...
Source: Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research