A 34-year-old woman suffering from severe depression and chronic renal failure is a candidate for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Which test listed below can be used to monitor the patient’s depressive symptoms with the greatest reliability and validity?
1.Thematic apperception test (TAT)
2.Rorschach test
3.Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological battery
4.Draw a person test
5.Back Depression inventory
(The Beck Depression Inventory is a widely used test that allows clinicians to follow the severity of previously diagnosed depression. The TAT, Rorschach Test, and Draw-a-Person Test are all types of projective testing. Projective tests, although useful clinical tools, often suffer low reliability and validity. Projective tests require a person skilled at this type of evaluation and often do not have rigorous empirical data and group comparison. The evaluation of depression in relation to the Halstead-Reitan Test is limited by the fact that many depressed patients fail to show deficits on such classic neuropsychological batteries. In addition, these tests, even when demonstrating deficits in cognitive domains such as attention and learning, still have very limited usefulness in evaluating the severity of the depression.)