title: Differentiation of neurologic and pseudo-neurologic patients with combined MMPI mini-mult and pseudo-neurologic scale.
abstract: Patients who were complaining of neurologic symptomagology completed the MMPI Mini-Mult plus the Shaw and Matthews Pseudo-Neurologic Scale to determine whether Pseudo-Neurologic and Neurologic patients could be separated. This was done with statistical significance, but not with clinical utility. There were no significant differences among the mean Mini-Mult profiles for the neurologic subcategory groups. Mean profiles for the Neurologic, Pseudo-Neurologic, and Mixed groups also were not significantly different, but analyses of the individual profiles in the Neurologic and Pseudo-Neurologic groups produced statistical and clinical significance. Presenting complaints of all Ss were investigated to see whether the Scale could predict differentially for patients in each of these groups. Only the complaint of weakness predicted with statistical significance and clinical utility. Attempts to create a new, more effective scale were disappointing despite statistical significance as misclassification decreased clinical utility.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008722:Methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011594:Psychometrics