Assessment of Habit Disorders: A Tripartite Perspective in Measuring Change

摘要

With the recent trend in developing multicomponent treatment strategies, outcome research has largely failed to embrace or formulate multidimensional measures of change. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in habit disorder research. To establish a philosophic foundation, Plato's tripartite view of the soul was proposed and expanded as an orientation to describe three basic realms of human functioning: conation, cognition, and affection. This orientation was then applied to the development of a comprehensive assessment approach for measuring outcome in obesity and tobacco smoking research. A review of the present literature on dependent measures in these areas indicate an overwhelming abundance of measuremnet devices in the conation dimension. In response to these deficits, proposals and recommendations are proferred to expand the measurement focus within obesity and tobacco smoking research.