Adapting assessment processes to consider cultural mistrust in forensic practices: An example with the MMPI instruments.

Objective: Our first goal in this study was to identify cultural mistrust critical items (CMCIs) on two versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-the MMPI-Second Edition-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and MMPI-Third Edition (MMPI-3)-that might be endorsed by people of color because of cultural mistrust rather than clinical paranoia. Our second goal was to determine whether CMCIs and items on the MMPI-2-RF/MMPI-3 Ideas of Persecution scale (Restructured Clinical Scale 6 [RC6]) were endorsed at different rates across cultural groups in a nonclinical college sample and a forensic inpatient sample.

Hypotheses: Our primary hypothesis was that expert raters would reliably identify a subset of MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-3 items as reflective of cultural mistrust.

Improving services for sex partners of chlamydia-infected patients in an HMO.

Objective: To improve services for sex partners of chlamydia-infected patients (ie, chlamydia partner services [CPS]) at an HMO.

Study Design: Assessment of current CPS policy, practices, and opinions in Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region (KPNW) and in local health departments, and design, implementation, and evaluation of 4 CPS interventions.

Methods: We reviewed KPNW policy documents, conducted focus groups with KPNW clinicians, and did phone interviews with KPNW chlamydia-infected patients and health department disease intervention specialists.