Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 55(4), Aug 2024, 336-344; doi:10.1037/pro0000564
Psychologists have a duty of care to provide accurate evaluation results for the clients they serve. This expectation also includes communicating the results and related treatment recommendations in an understandable manner for the referred client, as well as those involved in their care. Despite these obligations, psychologists generally produce reports that are not as helpful as they could be. Consumers of psychological reports (e.g., parents, teachers, third parties, etc.) find reports to be difficult to understand and not very useful. The limited research on psychological report writing available shows considerable variability among clinicians and many issues contributing to poor readability and overall quality (e.g., generic recommendations, jargon, focus on test scores, time involved, etc.). Thus, psychologists could be doing more to uphold their professional and ethical responsibilities to write understandable, meaningful, and useful reports; however, there is little indication of improvement in any of these areas over the past few decades. As such, we aim to highlight psychologists’ professional and ethical obligations to encourage growth. In this review, we discuss the current issues in psychological report writing, possible contributing factors, and the ethical principles involved in report writing. We also offer recommendations for psychologists and professional psychology training programs who wish to improve their practices in this core domain of professional practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)