Engaging People With Lived Experience of Psychological Disorders: Current Research and Future Directions for Community-Engaged Measure Development in Psychological Science

Abstract

The ability to make valid conclusions in psychological science rests on rigorous measure development. People with lived experience of psychological disorders can make invaluable contributions to the measure-development process, but they are often excluded from this process by researchers. When people with lived experience are included, their contributions are limited to consultation early in the process. In this review, we advocate for shared decision-making with people with lived experience throughout the measure-development process. We provide an overview of the phases and steps involved in the development of self-report measures, highlighting the critical contributions of people with lived experience at each step. Next, guided by the continuum of community engagement in research, we review studies from the psychological-science literature that embrace community-engaged measure-development approaches inclusive of people with lived experience of psychological disorders. We conclude with a discussion of opportunities and challenges to community-engaged measure development in psychological science.