MMPI and nightmares in male alcoholics.

In a group of 86 male chronic alcoholics (mean age 38.7 yr.), 25.6% responded with "True" to Item 31 ("I have nightmares every few nights") of the MMPI; the remaining patients marked the item as false. The two groups did not differ in age, visuospatial reasoning skills, and on a variety of MMPI measures except on the Psychasthenia scale: the former were more highstrung. The vocabulary of the latter was more extensive. A comparison of the responses to Item 31 with recent normative MMPI data for men (age 30 to 39 yr.) published by Colligan, et al. 1983 showed that alcoholics responded significantly more often with "True" than normal men.