Differential diagnosis using the MMPI-2: Goldberg's index revisited.
BACKGROUND
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) often supports clinical decision-making in complex diagnostic problems like differentiating neurosis from psychosis and psychosis from bipolar disorder. The MMPI Goldberg index, an arithmetical combination of five clinical scales, has been considered to provide a good estimate for discriminating between neurotic and psychotic profiles. Similarly, the MMPI-2 Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5) scales have been found to be useful in differentiating diagnostic categories.


METHODS
This study evaluates these findings in a sample of psychiatric patients diagnosed with depressive, psychotic, or bipolar disorder using ANOVA and discriminant analysis.


RESULTS
Results corroborate the validity of Goldberg's index and find MMPI-2 PSY-5 scale Disconstraint to significantly differentiate between psychotic and bipolar-I disorder.


CONCLUSIONS
The MMPI-2 Goldberg index and PSY-5 scales can offer a useful contribution to the differential diagnosis of depressive, psychotic and bipolar disorder.
Egger
Jos I M
JI
Department of Clinical Psychology and Personality, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands. j.egger@psych.kun.nl
Delsing
Peter A M
PA
De Mey
Hubert R A
HR
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009426:Netherlands; D010343:Patient Admission; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results