MMPI-2 content scale validity within a sample of chronic pain patients

The concurrent, criterion-related and discriminant validity of four of the MMPI-2 content scales were examined within a population of 309 patients bei ng evaluated for the treatment of chronic pain. Utilizing both self-report and therapist-derived criteria, the MMPI-2 content scales designed to asses s symptoms of anxiety (ANX), depression (DEP), low self-esteem (LSE), and a nger (ANG) demonstrated the ability to provide valid information beyond tha t provided by the traditional MMPI-2 clinical and validity indices. Further , a multi-trait/multi-method analytic approach revealed; (I) strong discrim inant validity for the ANG content scale and (2) substantial variance overl ap among all the self-report measures of subjective distress, compromising our efforts to evaluate the discriminant validity of the ANX, DEP, and LSE content scales.