| dc.description.abstract | The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI/MMPI-2), the most frequently
used measure ofpersonality and emotional frmctioning in clinical neuropsychological
settings, does not meet current psychometric standards. The Personality Assessment
Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) is a promising alternative to the MMPI, however its
usefulness or clinical utility has not yet been formally examined. The present study was
conducted to identify items ofthe PAI that might reflect neurological symptoms and to
compare scale scores before and after adjustment for this content. AU 344 PAI items were
examined by three neurospecialists. Twenty items were identified by these raters as
representing physical effects produced by acquired brain injury (ABI) and experienced by
at least one in four patients. Fifteen ofthese items were keyed on either the Somatic scale
or the Schizophrenia Thought Disorder subscale. PAI profiles for 62 ABI patients were
corrected for this content using the method of Gass (1991) for prorating scale scores on
the MMPI-2 (i.e., differential endorsement neurological vs. non-neurologcal items).
Although this correction significantly reduced mean sample scores across aU affected
scales (F [8, 54] = 45.22, p < .001), the frequencies ofT scores > 69 were most reduced
for the Somatic scale, from 32% to 8%, and the Schizophrenia Thought Disorder
subscale, from 45% to 16%. Difference scores between ABI and normative responses
were calculated. Nine of20 neurological items were among the highest discriminators
between these two populations. | |
