CONTRIBUTIONS OF DISCRIMINANT-ANALYSIS TO DIFFERENTIAL-DIAGNOSIS BY SELF-REPORT

We used discriminant function analyses of the Minnesota Multiphasic Pe rsonality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1983), Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI; Millon, 1983), MCMI-II (Millon, 1987), an d Symptom Checklist Ninety-Revised (SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1983) profile s from a heterogenous group of 272 psychiatric inpatients to classify patients as depressed, manic, and/or psychotic. Most functions generat ed from these tests significantly discriminated depressed, manic (not MCMI-II), and psychotic (not MCMI) subjects from psychiatric controls. However, there was little improvement in diagnostic efficiency over t he use of single scale elevations at specified cut scores. Functions d erived from the MCMI for mania and the MCMI-II for psychosis show the most promise but require replication. The difficulty of using group pr ofile differences for the diagnosis of individual psychiatric patients is discussed.