SCHOENY TO ADDRESS CHICAGO CHAPTER AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOC NIMH Awards 5-Year $3M Competitive Renewal for Gibbons CAT Grant
NIMH last week awarded a five-year, $3 million competitive renewal of the Mental Health Computerized Adaptive Testing Grant to Robert Gibbons , Ph.D. The aim of the investigation is to develop and evaluate computerized adaptive testing programs and algorithms for assessing depression. The original study demonstrated the feasibility of item response theory (IRT), and computerized adaptive testing (CAT) in the development and administration of a large mental health rating scale. Using an item bank of 626 mood and anxiety disorder symptom items, the investigators found that 90% of the items in the item bank were discriminating of high and low levels of mood disorders, and the bi-factor IRT model did an excellent job of accounting for the clustering of items within symptom domains. The initial study also found that CAT administration of the test resulted in a 95% reduction in the number of items administered to an individual subject (24 out of 626 items using simulated CAT and 31 items for live CAT testing), and the correlation between the CAT based impairment rating and the score based on all 626 items was r=0.93. Based on these results, the competitive renewal proposes to use IRT and CAT to develop a CAT Depression Inventory (CAT-DI).
In separate news, an article by Dr. Gibbons, “The Relationship Between Antidepressant Prescription Rates and Rate of Early Adolescent Suicide,” to be published in November edition The American Journal of Psychiatry , will be highlighted in the journal's In This Issue section and featured in a newsletter.
Schoeny to Present to Chicago Chapter of American Statistical Association
Mike Schoeny , Ph.D. will present a Sept. 26 talk to the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association on spatial analysis. All are invited. The flyer is attached. The presentation will begin at 12 noon at the East Bank Club, 500 N. Kingsbury, just east of the river and south of Grand Ave.
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