[The psychometric properties of MMPI-2 addiction related supplementary scales on alcoholic patients].

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to investigate criterion-related validity, internal-consistency and diagnostic efficiency statistics of the three MMPI-2 addiction related supplementary scales i.e., MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale (MAC-R), Addiction Potential Scale (APS) and Addiction Acknowledgment Scale (AAS).

METHOD

Sixty-nine male chronic alcoholic patients and 51 male healthy control subjects were recruited for the study. All patients satisfied the diagnostic criteria of ICD-10 for alcohol dependence. Alcohol and drug modules of Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) were administered to each patient in order to give the diagnosis of alcohol dependency. The lifetime severity of drinking problems was assessed by the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST).

RESULTS

The comparison of the MMPI-2 results of the study groups revealed that chronic alcoholic patients had higher scores on MAC-R, APS and AAS. The investigation of the diagnostic efficiency statistics showed that MAC-R and AAS had satisfactory sensitivity and specificity for alcoholic patients. As a measure of internal-consistency, Kuder-Richardson coefficients were found to be satisfactorily high for each scale.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study indicates that MMPI-2 based MAC-R and AAS scales are effective at differentiating between chronic alcoholic and control subjects. However, low specificity values of APS seemed to be damaging its diagnostic efficiency. Uniformly high Kuder-Richardson coefficients suggest that the items that comprise the MAC-R, APS and AAS are satisfactorily homogenous.