The Quantitative Study by Turid Moller and Olav Linaker...

Article Critique In the quantitative study by Turid Moller and Olav Linaker (2010), they examined and compared records of information given by psychotic patients concerning their alcohol and drug problems. In their study, the research question is Do psychotic patients under-assess themselves during early clinical interventions and what are the effects of under-assessment on their treatment outcomes? The null hypothesis is that failing to diagnose and account for substance abuse will not lead to high rates of relapse and hospital readmissions. Therefore, the alternate hypothesis is that failing to diagnose substance abuse will lead to high rates of relapse and hospital readmission. First, the study focused on evaluating the ‘psychometric†¦show more content†¦The techniques used to evaluate and manipulate the data involve linear regression and correlation methods. The researchers chose linear regression and correlation techniques because the analysis involves a comparison of the degree o f relationship between the assessments done by patients and the analysis of clinical officers (Price, 2014). Also, the analysis involved statistical elements such as phi-coefficients and Pearsons correlation coefficient, r. Pearson’s correlation coefficient has been used to test the linear relationship between information given by patients and those collected by nurses. Results First, the study found that the use of alcohol, drugs and stimulants contributed to mental and behavioral disorders in psychotic patients (Moller and Linaker, 2010). Second, the use of self-reports and staff-report screening tools are effective in diagnosing substance use disorders in psychotic patients. For instance, the specificity of the self-report tools are high enough to indicate reasonable accuracy. Third, there is a high correlation between results of the self-report and staff-report tools. For instance, the degree of similarity between the assessments done by patients and clinical officers are more or less the same. Finally, the study realized that some psychotic patients under-report their alcoholic problems whereas fewer patients under-report problems with drugs (Moller and Linaker, 2010). Fortunately, a significant number of the under-assessment is