Building a bridge of trust: collaborative assessment with a person with serious mental illness.

Collaborative assessment utilizes psychological testing to help people make positive changes in their lives. Limited research has evaluated the utility of collaborative assessment for persons with serious mental illness. This case example uses the Personality Assessment Inventory to illustrate the usefulness of collaborative assessment with a person with serious mental illness.

Childhood traumatic stress and obesity in women: the intervening effects of PTSD and MDD.

In this study, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) were modeled as intervening variables in the relationship between childhood traumatic stress and weight outcomes in civilian women in the United States. Of the 148 participants, 72 had current PTSD, 64 had current MDD, and 32 had neither disorder. In separate single indirect effect models, there were significant indirect effects of both PTSD and depressive symptoms on body mass index and waist-hip ratio.

Validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory Aggression scales and Violence Potential index in veterans with PTSD.

In this study, we examined the validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) Aggression (AGG) scales and Violence Potential index (VPI) in 399 male combat veterans presenting for formal evaluation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The AGG scales exhibited convergence with other measures of hostility and violence and demonstrated discriminant validity with alternative constructs. When we examined reports of interpersonal violence in the past year, the AGG composite scale displayed substantial incremental validity over the effects of PTSD severity, demographics, a simple dichotomous question regarding violence in the past 30 days, and MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) scales measuring aggression.

Validity rates of the Personality Assessment Inventory and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 in a VA Medical Center Setting.

In this study, we compared protocol validity rates between the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) in a veteran population. Veterans (N=472) were administered both instruments as part of routine psychological evaluations. Profile validity was based on previously published criteria.