Rating-scales as "blood tests": the consequence of linking clinimetrics and biomarkers in clinical psychology

The clinical relevance aimed at connecting the evaluation of psychological factors to neurobiological parameters has been considered a neglected domain in Clinical Psychology. However, when taking into consideration the clinical advantages linked to screen for the complex psychosomatic co-occurrence of psychic and organic symptoms by clinimetrically using rating scales, it is highly relevant from a diagnostic point of view to analyze the mental and biological patient’s condition. On this background, the aim of the current review study was to systematically report the studies analyzing the major implications associated to the combined use of clinimetrics and assessment of neurobiological correlates within the clinical practice.When focusing on the PRISMA guidelines, we have conducted a comprehensive systematic search for the literature on the PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases by combining the Boolean “AND” with “OR” operators. After adjusting for duplicates and reviewing the abstracts in order to exclude those which clearly did not meet the eligibility criteria, only a specific number of studies were identified for inclusion in the review. Detecting the missing clinical link between psychological and biological variables by comparing soft data resulting from rating scales with hard data deriving from neurobiological markers may improve the predictive diagnostic power of clinimetrics in Clinical Psychology.