Shortening and Personalizing Psychodiagnostic Assessments with Decision Tree-Machine Learning Classifiers: An Application Example Based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9.

The development of psychological assessment tools that accurately and efficiently classify individuals as having or not a specific diagnosis is a major challenge for test developers and mental health professionals. This paper shows how machine learning (ML) provides a valuable framework to improve t...

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Publicado en:International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction Vol. 24; no. 2; pp. 1004 - 1025
Autores principales: Colledani, Daiana, Robusto, Egidio, Anselmi, Pasquale
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Apr2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Shortening and Personalizing Psychodiagnostic Assessments with Decision Tree-Machine Learning Classifiers: An Application Example Based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9.
      aug:
        au:
          Colledani, Daiana
          Robusto, Egidio
          Anselmi, Pasquale
        affil:
          https://ror.org/00240q980 Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia 14, 35131, Padua, Italy
          https://ror.org/02be6w209 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy
      su:
        Psychological tests
        Decision trees
        Machine learning
        Classification
        Health surveys
        Feature selection
        Psychodiagnostics
      sug:
        subj:
          Psychological tests
          Decision trees
          Machine learning
          Classification
          Health surveys
          Feature selection
          Psychodiagnostics
      keyword:
        Decision tree
        Machine learning classifiers
        Patient Health Questionnaire-9
        Psychological assessment
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Receiver operating characteristic curve
        Decision tree
        Machine learning classifiers
        Patient Health Questionnaire-9
        Psychological assessment
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Receiver operating characteristic curve
      ab: The development of psychological assessment tools that accurately and efficiently classify individuals as having or not a specific diagnosis is a major challenge for test developers and mental health professionals. This paper shows how machine learning (ML) provides a valuable framework to improve the accuracy and efficiency of psychodiagnostic classifications. The method is illustrated using an empirical example based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). The results show that, compared to traditional scorings of the PHQ-9, that based on decision tree (DT) algorithms is more advantageous in terms of accuracy and efficiency. In addition, the DT-based method facilitates the development of short test forms and improves the diagnostic performance of the test by integrating external information (e.g., demographic variables) into the scoring process. These findings suggest that DT-algorithms and ML applications such as feature selection represent a valuable method for supporting test developers and mental health professionals, and highlight the potential of ML for advancing the field of psychological assessment.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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