Microcomputers for Couple and Family Assessment: ENRICH and Other Inventories

Some of the advantages of using microcomputers for couple and family assessment are described and a comprehensive marital assessment tool called ENRICH will be described to illustrate the type of information that a computer summary can produce for therapists.

Abstract

Considerable advances have been made in the development of valid, reliable, and clinically relevant inventories for marital and family therapy (Olson, Russell, & Sprenkle, 1980). However, few of these tools have been systematically integrated into clinical practice. Some of the major obstacles that have limited the clinical use of these inventories are the difficulty in administering, scoring, printing, and storing these data. Microcomputers can, however, help overcome some of these problems. With the increasing availability of microcomputers, these inventories can now be more readily introduced into clinical practice. This paper will describe some of the advantages of using microcomputers for couple and family assessment. A variety of self-report inventories that are currently available on microcomputers will be briefly reviewed. A comprehensive marital assessment tool called ENRICH will be described to illustrate the type of information that a computer summary can produce for therapists.