Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the diagnostic availability of the MMPI-2 profile in patients with depression and patients with schizophrenia. The participants were 37 patients with depression, 36 patients with schizophrenia and 36 normal controls. The patients with depression showed a mean profile of 2-7-0 and significantly high T scores (T≥ 65) in 2 and 7. The patients with schizophrenia showed a mean profile of 8-6, but the T scores of the two scales were not clinically significant (T < 65). In the normal group, the T scores on the clinical and content scales were almost all under 50. A series of logistic regression analyses was conducted to examine the diagnostic ability of the clinical and content scales to differentiate between the three groups. Consistent with the previous literature, the content scales of DEP and TPA proved to be the most powerful predictors in distinguishing the depressed patients from the normal controls, and the clinical scale 8 (Sc) and the content scales OBS, BIZ, ANG proved to be the most powerful predictors in distinguishing the schizophrenia patients from the normal group. The clinical scale 2 (D) and the content scales BIZ and ANG proved to be the most powerful predictors in distinguishing depressed patients from patients with schizophrenia. The limitations of this study and suggested directions for future research were discussed.