title: Separation of brain-damaged from psychiatric patients with the combined use of an ability and a personality test: a validation study with a Puerto Rican population.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to validate the results obtained by Watson, Gasser, Schaefer, Buranen, and Wold (1981) by utilizing the Smith Symbol-Digit Modalities Test (Form W) and the MMPI (Psychiatric-Organic) scale in combination. Forty recently admitted/readmitted male patients were given both the SDMT and the MMPI (P-O) at a point in their hospitalization in a private inpatient psychiatric hospital in Puerto Rico. The combined use of the Smith and the P-O scale, with the criteria originally developed by Watson et al. (1981), provided a modest level of discrimination by correctly identifying 80% of the brain-damaged sample (organic group) and 55% of the functional sample (psychiatric group) subjects. This combination of tests yielded an overall mean hit rate of 67.5%. These results moderately support the findings obtained by Watson et al. (1981).
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001077:Aptitude Tests; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019965:Neurocognitive Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011647:Puerto Rico / Q000208:ethnology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis