Descriptive Profiles of the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) across a National Sample of Four Veteran Affairs Treatment Settings

Abstract

This investigation provides descriptive information on substantive scale scores from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) across four common service locations within Veterans Affairs (VA): PTSD clinical team, individual substance use treatment, primary medical care, and residential polytrauma rehabilitation. Test protocols for these four service settings are drawn from a national sample of all MMPI-2-RF and converted MMPI-2 administrations between January 1, 2008 and May 31, 2015 using the VA Mental Health Assist system at any VA across the United States. Frequency of substantive scale elevation and descriptive findings are examined. Results of this investigation suggest that there are differences between VA service locations on the MMPI-2-RF substantive scales, the magnitude of difference depends on the substantive scale examined, and the pattern of elevation within service location follows common clinical concerns for the settings. Implications for the clinical use, and research with, the MMPI-2-RF within the VA and with the veteran population are discussed.

Comparing MMPI-2-Restructured Form Scores by Service Era for Veterans Assessed Within the Veteran Affairs Healthcare System

“…This has direct clinical implications because the current MMPI-2-RF VA comparison groups do not include Gulf War veterans but can, nonetheless, be used with individuals of this service era. An ability to generalize findings across service eras is critical to improving assessment veracity, and subsequent treatment recommendations, as the MMPI-2-RF is widely used within the VA in a variety of healthcare services and clinic types (e.g., Ingram et al, 2019a;Russo, 2017).…”

“…Nevertheless, clinicians should continue being mindful of the potential for suicidal risk-particularly within aging veterans. More generally, primary care settings appear to provide an optimal service location in which to regularly conduct those suicide screenings within the VA healthcare setting (Ashrafioun et al, 2016;Oslin et al, 2006) and the MMPI-2-RF has documented utility within various medical settings (Forbey et al, 2012;Ingram et al, 2019a), including for spinal surgery and bariatric evaluations (e.g., Block, Ben-Porath, & Marek, 2013;Marek et al, 2012).…”

“…Participant MMPI-2/RF responses included no item missing data. Two papers have been published using this database, one calculated context-specific comparison groups using the MMPI-2-RF substantive scale scores (Ingram et al, 2019a) and the second examined patterns of validity scale functioning (Ingram et al, 2019b). This paper expands existing analyses by exploring the impact of service era on clinical presentation.…”

“…In addition, the Anxiety (AXY) scale has been identified as a key indicator of PTSD symptomatology (e.g., Arbisi et al, 2011;Sellbom et al, 2012). Beyond use as an aid for assessing PTSD, the MMPI-2-RF substantive scales also predict a variety of clinically relevant criteria across other VA treatment settings, including substance use treatment programs (Forbey & Ben-Porath, 2007), inpatient and outpatient mental health settings (Nelson, Anderson, Hoelzle, & Arbisi, 2014), and primary care (Forbey, Ben-Porath, & Arbisi, 2012;Ingram et al, 2019a).…”

The role of the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) in predicting and better understanding engagement in posttraumatic stress disorder treatment.

“…T tests were used to examine possible age differences at each phase of treatment, but no statistically significant age differences were found. -2-RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008 MMPI-2-RF is a 338-item version of the MMPI-2, the most widely used measure of personality and psychopathology (Camara et al, 2000), which includes extensive administration in the VA including through PTSD Clinical Teams (Ingram et al, 2019). A MMPI-2-RF administration provides information on 51 scales, including nine Validity scales, three H-O scales, nine Restructured Clinical (RC) scales, 23 Specific Problem (SP) scales, two Interest scales, and five PSY-5 scales.…”