Edinburg (Tezos) Diagnostic and TrGdmd CenterBiq Spring (Tezas) Stale Hospi(al PROBLEM Several MMPI scales purporting to measure tendency towards alcoholism have been developed. MacAndrew and Geertsma(6) evaluated the three older scales on the baais of their power to discriminate between alcoholic and non-alcoholic male out-patients and concluded that these alcoholism scales were essentially measures of general maladjustment since they were unsuccessful in discriminating between the two groups. RlacAndrew ( L ) developed a new MMPI scale which, when applied to a cross validation sample, demonstrated that significant differences in MMPI responses do exist between alcoholics and other psychiatric patients.This study compared the validity of the MacAndrew scale, here designated AMAC, with the three older MMPI alcoholisni scales (AM('), ALO), AH('), and a revised alcoholism scale constructed on the basis of item overlap between the three older alcoholism scales. This revised alcoholism scale, designated AREV consisted of 40 items common to at least two of the AH, AL and AM alcoholism scales. It was assumed that a valid alcoholism scale would distinguish between alcoholics and normals as well as between alcoholics and 'psychiatric patients. This study also extends the research with MRlPI alcoholism scales to female subjects. Subjects. Three criterion groups, each composed of 60 males and 60 females were established. Alcoholic patients were selected randomly from files of tested patients admitted to Big Spring State Hospital, psychiatric patients from Big Spring State Hospital, and a normal group selected from two sources, applicants to the hospital personnel office for employment and college student volunteers.The booklet form of the MMPI was administered to Ss in all groups. Means, standard deviations and analyses of variance were obtained on the five MMPI alcoholism scales.
Procedure.
RESULTS A N D DISCUSSIONMeans and standard deviations of all groups on each scale are given in Table 1. All alcoholic group means are highest in each cell except with AL scale males where the patient group mean is highest. TABLE 1. MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS OF MMPI ALCOHOLISM SCALES Groups AH AJ AM AREV h A C M SL) M SD M SD M SD M SD Male Patient 36.7 5.5 55.2 15.4
FemaleAll scales show significant effects at the .Ol level or higher between diagnostic groups. The AMAC, AM and AREV Scales show significant differences between sexes. Interaction F's are uniformly nonsignificant.Duncan's range test was utilized to evaluate the significance of differences of means for each scale. The AL scale did not discriminate between male alcoholics and patients, and the AH scale did not differentiate female alcoholics and normals. On all other scale and sex combinations, the alcoholism scales discriminated at the .01
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