Abstract
The study involved a comparison of two diagnostic groups, schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic, randomly assigned to short-term hospitalization (defined as 3 to 4 wk.) versus long-term hospitalization (defined as 3 to 4 mo.). Outcome indices were derived separately from the Health-Sickness Rating Scale and the Psychiatric Evaluation Form, based on ratings at admission, at discharge, and 1 and 2 yr. post-admission. Scores from the intake administration of the MMPI were predictive of outcome for the 26 long-term nonschizophrenics but not for the other groups. To understand the variability in predictive efficacy, all of the self-report data were analyzed for dependability by application of the Wald-Wolfowitz Runs test to the MMPI answer sequences. No response inter-dependency among the total group of 47 nonschizophrenics was noted, but a significant amount was among the combined group of 86 schizophrenics. For the schizophrenics apparently unreliability of response had reduced the potential for prediction from the MMPI.
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