Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the utility of the Korean version of the MMPI-2 in clinical assessment. MMPI-2 results of one hundred twenty psychiatric patients were compared with those of 167 college students on scale scores and item endorsement frequencies. Cross-cultural comparisons between Korean and American samples were also made. As reported in the study with Chinese and Hong Kong sample(Cheong, Song, & Zhang, 1996), elevated clinical scores among normals and moderate gap on clinical scale scores between normals and psychiatric samples were found: Korean college students showed significantly elevated mean scores on the MMPI-2 scales compared to American normative sample; Mean clinical scores produced by Korean psychiatric patients were only slightly higher than those of Korean college students, resulting partly in a small difference between Korean and American psychiatric samples. Results from item-level analyses were not clear enough to draw meaningful conclusions on MMPI-2 performance among different diagnostic groups. Limitations of this study suggest that the results of this study should be interpreted with caution and that further research is needed to explore the clinical utility of the Korean MMPI-2.