The institutional affiliation
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) released in 1989 assesses the general validity of seven measures of maladjustments in outpatient health settings. The MMPI-2 has about 600 items or questions (true or false format) and takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes to be fully completed (Graham, Barthlow, Stein, Ben-Porath & McNulty, 2002). The measures are mainly based on the self-reported symptom severity, clinicians’ ratings of symptom severity and level of functioning. MMPI-2 is implemented in order to identify the characteristics of the test takers which can be used for the treatment and diagnose purposes. The main accent is often made on identification of people with psychiatric symptomatology or general maladjustment, when it is decided whether the person can be treated as an outpatient or whether more structured inpatient setting is necessary. Thus, treatment approaches usually depend on the maladjustment level of patients.
In fact, there are seven different scales for measuring the level of maladjustment suggested during the 20th century. F scale reflects several components of psychological maladjustment which are closely related to each other, namely, the level of distress experienced by a person and impairments in everyday life. The Psychasthenia scale easily identifies the general maladjustment, but it is more effective being elevated along with other clinical scales. Welsh’s Anxiety scale examines the main dimensions taken from the MMPI factor analyses of the validity and other scales. The Ego Strength scale developed by Barron in 1953 helps predict response to personal psychotherapy and available psychological resources necessary for full functioning. There was also the College Maladjustment scale putting the line between psychologically maladjusted and adjusted students. The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder scale distinguishes between people who suffer from posttraumatic stress for a long time and those with other psychiatric disorders. Finally, it goes T score based on eight clinical scales which is considered as the main indicator of maladjustment (Graham, Barthlow, Stein, Ben-Porath & McNulty, 2002).
MMPI-2 study took place in two facilities, namely, a large community mental health center (CMHC) with more than two thousand male and female participants and university psychological clinic (UPC) with around 600 hundred participants. The intake forms used in both settings represent the updated version of the original MMPI. The intake along with the ratings was completed by a professional mental health worker on the basis of the interview with possible clients. The final ratings of the level of functioning were completed and represented by therapists by means of a six-point scale. Afterwards, the MMPI-2 could have been administrated within the interval of seven days (Graham, Barthlow, Stein, Ben-Porath & McNulty, 2002).
According to the received results, all of the measures of maladjustment were more or less related to each other in both settings with a slight negative correlation between the Ego Strength scale and other measures. As expected, there was a significant intercorrelation in all measures for men and women in both CMHC and UPC. The ratings of the level of functioning were connected to the symptoms of severity with a negative meaning. M8 turned out to be the best predictor of maladjustment in all analyses within MMPI-2. It was strongly connected to the criterion measure within both settings for both genders. However, M8 variable has quite much variance from other measures what means that the MMPI-s criteria are not that independent of each other and are more effective being considered together. In addition, M8 requires some calculations which enable reporting for all users (Graham, Barthlow, Stein, Ben-Porath & McNulty, 2002).
References
Graham, J., Barthlow, D., Stein, L., Ben-Porath, Y., & McNulty, J. (2002). Assessing General Maladjustment With the MMPI-2. Journal Of Personality Assessment, 78(2), 334-347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa7802_08
