RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine psychological characteristics of patients who visited psychiatric clinic for medical certificate for military service using MMPI-2-RF. We compared target group with general psychiatric patients with same age range. METHODS: A total of 165 male patients for medical certificate and 154 general psychiatric patients were collected from the Department of Psychiatry of three university hospitals. There were significant differences of age and educational level between two groups. We used independent t-test, ANCOVA, χ² test to examine differences between two groups. RESULTS: Medical certificate group scored higher on the validity scales, the Higher-Order(H-O) scales, the Restructured Clinical(RC) Scales, the Specific Problems(SP) Scales, and the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) Scales. Especially, EID, RC7, HLP, SFD, SAV, SHY, DSF, and INTR-r showed significant differences between two groups on all three statistical tests. CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed that psychiatric patients who received psychological evaluation for military service have significantly higher emotional distress, helplessness, lower self-confidence, and lower quality of interpersonal relationships. And the difference of validity scales between two groups could be related with psychological burden of compulsory military service in the study sample which causes elevation on scales of infrequent responses. MMPI-2-RF would be helpful instrument to assess these emotional and psychological characteristics.