Assessing depression with the MMPI and MMPI-2.
The usefulness of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1951 ) and MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) for diagnosing and assessing symptomatic depression has been the subject of considerable debate for a number of years. In this article, we review the relative contributions of the MMPI and MMPI-2 clinical and content scales in predicting depression. Positive predictive power, negative predictive power, and overall classification rate were computed for Scale 2 (D) of the MMPI and MMPI-2 and the Depression content scale (DEP) of the MMPI-2. Scale 2 (D) of both the MMPI and MMPI-2 appears to be moderately accurate in predicting depression. Although some studies suggest that the content scale DEP provides incremental validity over Scale 2 (D) of the MMPI-2, the results of this review indicate that the content scale DEP of the MMPI-2 does not exceed the diagnostic efficiency of Scale 2 in predicting depression.
Gross
K
K
Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, Palo Alto, CA 94303-4233, USA.
Keyes
M D
MD
Greene
R L
RL
D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI / Q000592:standards*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012107:Research Design