OM book glossary

This is the glossary, over 300 entries and climbing, for the book “Outcome measures and evaluation in counselling and psychotherapy” written by myself and Jo-anne Carlyle and available now from SAGE. Some glossary entries link to more detailed expansions of the topic in my Rblog and, at last, an increasing number now link with interactive online (“shiny”) apps.

You can see the alphabetical list of entries below which is a good place to browse, or you can use this search box.

Beware: the way the search orders the matches is to my mind bizarre so scroll down if what you typed isn’t first on the list, you may find something with exactly the title that is exactly the phrase you typed in to find is hidden down the list of suggestions.

If what you want is not there and you think it should be, contact me and tell me and I will put it on the (long!) list of entries to be added!

N

Number Needed to Treat (NNT) and Number Needed to Harm (NNH)

These are very simple ideas coming out of the randomised controlled trial (RCT) world and…

NPV (Negative Predictive Value)

Crucial parameter of any simple screening design: the probability that someone scoring below the screening…

Non-parametric "tests"

Really "non-parametric statistical methods". Statistical methods that don't rely on assumptions about population distributions,…

Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) paradigm

This, essentially the same as "inferential testing" (q.v.), is the paradigm which has dominated the…

Null hypothesis

This is one of the fundamental building blocks of the "Null Hypothesis Significance Test" (NHST)…

n > 5 rule

See anonymisation!

Notched box plot

[Go to the entry about box plots before this if you are not familiar with…

Nested data, nesting

Very often therapy change data is "nested": sessional observations within each client, each client within…

Nocebo effect

See Placebo effect.

Nomothetic measures, Nomothetic data

Nomothetic measures are ones on which everyone has a value that can be compared with…

More

Page last updated 19.v.24 to add the new BetterDocs “encyclopedia” listing of entries. Author CE, page and all glossary contents are copyright to me. That may change to a Creative Commons licence later when I am happier with the content.