WHATS IN A NAME - THE MMPI-2 PTSD SCALES

The MMPI-2 post-traumatic stress disorder scales (PK and PS) were exam ined with a sample of 96 outpatient anxiety disorder and 97 outpatient traffic accident subjects. PK and PS correlated .96 and showed highly similar correlations with MMPI-2 validity, clinical, content and supp lementary scales for both groups, which indicated that these scales ar e indices of MMPI first-factor variance. This was supported by separat e principal components analyses for each group, in which PK and PS con tributed the most variance to the first component. Although the groups showed different MMPI-2 mean profiles, neither PK nor PS contributed to discriminant function classification of group members. It is sugges ted that PK and PS are indices of general emotional distress and malad justment; implications for their use in diagnosing post-traumatic stre ss disorder were discussed.