Prognosis (psychology)
In psychotherapy or clinical psychology , psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine , prognosis is understood as the prediction of the future course of the disease , similar to medicine . Due to the extraordinary complexity , the forecasts are only statements of probability .
The prognosis depends on the respective diagnosis and other various factors ( comorbidity , compliance , social living conditions, etc.)
Examples of disease courses:
- phased progressive development
- chronic-static development
- chronic progressive development
Prognosis in psychology
In psychology , prognosis is a sub-area of diagnostics . A prognosis is therefore a psychological-diagnostic statement z. B. about school, academic and professional success etc. or about the course of a mental disorder or the rehabilitation of a criminal .
If a suitable combination of procedures, professional application, evaluation and interpretation by psychologists is used , the reliability and validity of these prognostic statements are relatively high. The validity decreases as the forecast period increases, i.e. the period over which the statement should extend (a prognostic statement about professional success in 20 years has practically no validity).
In areas of prognostic statements in traffic psychological and, in the broadest sense, professional contexts (including school, studies, training, professional rehabilitation), psychological prognosis is by far the most frequently used and is the most advanced in terms of scientific validation.
In the field of research, methodological aspects of prognosis in legal psychology currently dominate, in particular the development and evaluation of mathematical-psychological and psychometric statistical models in the areas of crime prognosis. For example, using the formula
by inserting the appropriate variable
- x 1 = age in years
- x 2 = gender (0 or 1)
- x 3 = number of youth criminal convictions
- x 4 = total number of convictions to date
- x 5 = the time in years that have passed since the first conviction
- x 6 = type of offense (according to table)
the likelihood of recidivism of an imprisoned criminal can be determined (procedure according to the Offender Group Reconviction Scale according to Hanson and Thornton)
Prognosis in Psychosomatic Medicine
In contrast to somatic illnesses absence indicates not of psychopathological symptoms necessarily indicate a recovery out. Rather, neurotic processes can also take place in secret or produce no obvious symptoms at all . Also, an improvement in the symptoms during therapy does not necessarily indicate a cure , but can also be due to a restored ability to compensate . This then simply means that the disease is currently not producing any symptoms. This is due to the fact that the symptoms are not identical to the disease , but only represent its expression.
Prognosis in psychiatry
In psychiatry, the course of the disease can e.g. T. can be predicted quite reliably. For example, certain forms of phasic psychosis typically appear regularly with attacks, but may remit completely again, so that the patient is hardly affected afterwards. With other diseases, especially those of the schizophrenic form, a chronification must be expected.