ABSTRACT
Using an overall sample of 278 individuals who had taken the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Second Edition (MMPI-2) and who had clear diagnostic information available in their medical records, the Meyers Index (MI) for the MMPI-2 (Meyers, Millis, & Volkert, 2002 ) was calculated for each individual, and a new version of the MI created for the MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) was calculated. The MI is a method of combining multiple MMPI-2 validity scales into a single weighted index to assess exaggerated self-report on the MMPI-2. The new index is intended to provide the same type of global assessment of validity but for the MMPI-2-RF (MI-r). The MI and the MI-r were compared at both individual and group levels and were found to correlate well (r = .87). Diagnostic groups of litigants and nonlitigants of traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, and posttraumatic stress disorder were also examined; and the performance of the MI and the MI-r were similar. Similarly, the pass and fail agreement rate for the two scales was 93%. The results indicate that the MI and MI-r perform very similarly and are good methods of assessing overall validity of MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF test performance.
Subject(s)
Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Cognition Disorders/psychology , MMPI , Adult , Brain Injuries/complications , Chronic Pain/complications , Databases, Factual/statistics & numerical data , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Neuropsychological Tests , Personality/physiology , Regression Analysis , Reproducibility of Results , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/complications , Young AdultABSTRACT
In this study, we compared objective neuropsychological data using the Meyers Neuropsychological Battery (MNB; Meyers & Rohling, 2004 ) and self-report measures of emotional distress using the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1994 ) with self-ratings of functional difficulties as measured by the Patient Competency Rating Scale (PCRS; Prigatano, 1986 ). The results showed a high correlation between the PCRS and scales on the SCL-90-R (r = .65), whereas correlation with the overall test battery mean of the MNB was quite small (r = .18). Our results indicate that self-report of cognitive difficulties is more related to current emotional distress than to objective measures. Therefore, any diagnostic considerations that rely on self-report need to be tempered by considerations of current emotional status. This has implications for diagnoses such as posttraumatic stress disorder and other diagnoses that rely on self-report as a source of diagnostic information.
