{"doi":"10.1037/cps0000210","title":"Commentary on “When (not) to rely on the reliable change index”.","abstract":"McAleavey (2024) provides extensive criticism of the reliable change index (RCI) and some general information about alternatives, but we have concerns about the article.This commentary briefly mentions seven areas of concern: 1) Minimally important difference (MID) estimates are not appropriate for assessing individual change; 2) Analytic choices are not either/or; 3) Test-retest reliability is not superior to internal consistency reliability; 4) Coefficient of repeatability versus the Instrument's RCI; 5) Sum scores; 6) Feasibility of obtaining multiple observations per individual; and 7) Alternatives to the RCI. Minimally important difference (MID) estimates are not appropriate for individual changeThe MID is an estimate of the threshold for the size of a mean difference on a measure that is minimally important.The minimally important change (MIC) is a subset of the MID that focuses on mean change on a measure.The MIC is a subset of responsiveness to change intended to represent the smallest mean difference that is important enough to care about.MIC estimates are motivated by the fact that trivial group mean change can be statistically significant if the sample size is large enough.McAleavey claims that the RCI \"has been considered a 'distribution-based MID'\" because it is based on population statistics.There is no such thing as population statistics.There are sample statistics and population parameters.So-called distribution-based MID estimates such as 0.5 SD or the standard error of measurement do not provide estimates of the size of change that is minimally important.Moreover, while he acknowledges that the RCI and MID \"are different quantities,\" and that the MID estimates are usually smaller than the coefficient of repeatability, the MID is used for interpreting group mean differences rather than individual change (Hays and Peipert, 2021).","journal":"Clinical Psychology Science and Practice","year":2024,"id":489149,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9564,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":520803,"name":"Steven P. Reise","orcid":"0000-0002-5408-6992","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":453463,"name":"Ron D. Hays","orcid":"0000-0001-6697-907X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":7,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:08:23.929823Z","pmid":"40028657","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}