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Administering the PMSIAdministering the PMSI
Successful use of the Personal Multi Screening Inventory depends primarily on the abilty of the practitioner in administering and using it for assessment, evaluation, and strategic planning. This chapter provides some practical guidelines in these areas. Although skill and sensitivity are required for successful use of the PMSI, these are quickly and easily acquired on the job and do not require specialized technical training.
Administering the PMSI
One of the worst possible things the practitioner can do in administering the PMSI scale is to convey to the client the impression that you are uncertain or unsure of the value or importance of administering the PMSI or obtaining the client's responses to them.For whatever reason, some practitioners who have never used measurement tools of any sort seem to feel they must apologize when asking the client to "take a test". An apologetic attitude on the part of the practitioner immediately conveys to the client an impression that completion of any questionnaire or scale is an unnecessary and unwarranted intrusion upon the client. This must be avoided. The PMSI is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers to any of the items on any of the PMSI constructs. The constructs are designed to obtain information about the magnitude of the client's problems and strengths in 33 areas, and the practitioner's need for such information constitutes a legitimate basis for asking the client to complete the PMSI. Unfortunately, many clients are wary and distrustful of psychological "tests," and some may be unwilling to fill out any scale that is not properly explained to them. Equally unfortunate is the fact that there is a real basis for client fears and concerns about completing "psychological tests". Patients, clients, research subjects, and ordinary citizens are occasionally asked to take psychological tests whereupon the scores and their meaning are hidden away, protected, left unexplained, used to attach unflattering diagnostic or descriptive labels to the respondent, or are otherwise beclouded in an aura of secrecy and mystery. It is therefore not difficult to understand why the public has developed a sense of paranoia and suspicion about psychological tests or scales. To properly use the PMSI, the practitioner must overcome these fears and concerns of the client (as well as the practitioner's own concerns in this regard), and it is nearly always surprisingly easy to do by following a reasonable set of guidelines in administering the PMSI. The remaining sections of this chapter describe procedures or rules that have been worked out in clinical uses of the PMSI and other similar assessment tools and thus far have proven to be highly effective. Basically there are only three such rules or procedures: understand how the PMSI performs; assure the client of its importance; and explain its purpose and how it will be used. |