THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MCMI PERSONALITY-SCALES AND CLINICIAN-GENERATED DSM-III-R PERSONALITY-DISORDER DIAGNOSES

This study examined the relationship between elevations on the persona lity scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) and cli nician-generated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) d iagnoses for 101 psychiatric patients at a VA medical center/psychiatr ic hospital in the Southeastern United States. Personality disorder di agnoses were made by employing a personality symptom checklist that co nsisted of all the verbatim criteria for personality disorders contain ed in the DSM-III-R. Clinicians who completed the checklists were requ ired to have had at least 5 hr of direct contact with the patients who completed the MCMI. The results indicated that only the Schiozotypal scale of the MCMI was related to its respective DSM-III-R personality disorder in the simple correlation. An examination of the diagnostic e fficiency statistics for each of the MCMI personality disorder scales revealed overall low sensitivity, poor specificity, poor positive pred ictive power, and low diagnostic power, which suggests that the MCMI m ay have only limited utility in identifying personality disorders.