Self-Reports in Behavioural Clinical Settings

Introduction

Self-reports have constituted basic procedures of psychological assessment. Self-reports have been used with different goals either in traditional or behavioural assessments. In the first case, the goal pursued is the study of the underlying personality. In the second, the goal to be reached is the measurement of manifested behaviour (verbalized).

Self-reports are widely employed assessment methods, consisting of the collection of verbal information provided by an individual about him or herself. Therefore, it can be considered as a variation of self-observation techniques. Information such as motor responses (avoidance behaviour, tobacco consumption, etc.), psycho-physiological responses (tachycardia, sweating, etc.) and cognitive responses (sadness, insecurity, etc.) can be collected through self-reports. It is also the only available method to collect information about cognitive responses (for a review see Fernández-Ballesteros, 2002).

Definition

The term self-report includes all structured instruments, generally printed on paper (currently some computerized proofs are available), that will provide information about the subject and his/her behaviour (see Table 1). This study will employ Hersen and Bellack's definition (1988) including questionnaires, inventories and scales, even though their terminology is controversial. Self-reports can be general (referring to the subject's general behaviour) or specific (focused on certain problems or behaviours). A subject's answers constitute a sample of their behaviour and never a sign of any internal element to be known through such answers. Self-reports, as an assessment tool [Page 878]within clinical contexts, present several advantages that explain its popularity: facility of application, economy, systematizing, allowing results comparison both during the treatment procedure and the follow-up phase. On the other hand, self-reports save time, allowing the psychologist to detect with certain rapidity the areas where the subject may have problems. Consequently, psychologists can evaluate, with more detail, specific behaviours in such areas. In this sense, it allows obtainment of both quantitative and qualitative information that make it possible to design and perform the intervention or treatment. Above all, as it was previously said, self-reports constitute the only direct form of evaluation for subjective cognitive responses.

The studies on the reliability and validity of self-reports have been more frequent in the traditional assessment perspective than in the behavioural assessment field. Its measure presents some problems that may alter the reliability of the obtained data: the subject might distort voluntarily or involuntarily the information. In clinical contexts, the client wants to solve a problem and therefore a voluntary distortion of the data is more difficult. However, there are some factors that might be activated involuntarily such as reactivity and different expectations (the same factors take place within observation and self-observation techniques).

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