Who Gives Gaf Scoes?

[c&p man]

I am just now claiming depression ,but who gives you a gaf score? is it only given at c and p exams? i never gotten one even though i go to a va

[john999]

I think they change the GAF's every time you get treated to pretend they actually are treating you. In fact psychotherapy at the VA is just a joke. How can you have a theraputic relationship with a patient you only see every three months for 15 minutes for a med check?

[c&p man]

I think they change the GAF's every time you get treated to pretend they actually are treating you. In fact psychotherapy at the VA is just a joke. How can you have a theraputic relationship with a patient you only see every three months for 15 minutes for a med check?

i have never gotten a gaf score yet...never had a c and p for my mental stuff yet....i guess i ll get one at my c and p....

[Pete53]

If you see a shrink at the VA you got a GAF or you were GAFFED

[jsdwd]

Many Veterans and even people who just take the test are sort of defewnsive and do not want anyone to know just how bad they feel. People are not stupid when a question is asked and the response is limited to yes or no how can you trust it.

I would think that a tests with 5 answers showing degrees would be much more helpful,

I always told people that the purpose of the MMPI and other VA tests was to put you in a box. I swear I could take the test a week apart and be totally different in some areas.

I don't know much about the GAF, but the MMPI is a pretty sophisticated test. It's been around for years and probably used millions of times. For more info on the test history and background see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmpi

There have been books written about it and interpreting it. It has a number of scales (over 10 I think) and the numerical answers to the questions and combinations of questions places you on the scales. These results are compared with other methods of diagnosing the same conditions and some measure of validity (the extent to which a test measures what it says it's measuring) is had. Reliability (the extent to which you would get the same results if you measured the same thing again) is more complicated in that the test-taker and testing conditions are both constantly changing as "Pete53" points out.

Build into the test are several measures of 'internal reliability' (that is the consistency of response). The test has over 500 questions and a number of them are designed to check for consistency of response. There are scales for that too and if the scores of inconsistency run too high the tester is warned against taking the results of the overall test as a reliable measure.

The GAF is not a test one takes. it is an assessment and a subjective one at that. Much more subjective and, since the raters are likely to change from one situation to the next, a single value is much less reliable than a single MMPI score. Having said that, tests of the inter-rater reliability (do different assessors assign the same value to a series of of the same cases) is pretty good.