Customer Reviews

Practitioner's Guide to Symptom Base Rates in Clinical Neuropsychology (Critical Issues in Neuropsychology)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I wanted to like this book but couldn't. After a BRIEF preface, the authors present a relentless stream of tables unbroken by commentary. Each table is offered with the study's author, publication date, sample size, gender, age, nationality, population, time frame and method of report. There is also an index listing primary symptoms and page references to help navigate the reader, however it is incomplete and retrieving a table by a symptom ranked second or third in the listing requires rereading the text.

Given that base-rates tend to define abnormality and given the usefulness of inquiring about comorbid symptoms, this book seems like it ought to be a useful. Instead it is a curiosity. Results are presented without the rationale for the studies inclusion or discussion of the results no matter how provocative.

The book seems to selectively include studies providing elevated rates of symptomatology.I worry that these citations, which seem to show inflated rates of illness and pathological symptoms in community samples, will be used to further dismiss vulnerable individuals with health concerns.