Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans: The Utility of the MMPI-2-RF Validity Scales in Detecting Overreported Symptoms

The current investigation examined the utility of the overreporting validity scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008) in detecting noncredible reporting of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a sample of disability-seeking veterans. We also examined the effect of mental health knowledge on the utility of these scales by investigating the extent to which these scales differentiate between veterans with PTSD and individuals with mental health training who were asked to feign symptoms of PTSD on the test. Group differences on validity scale scores indicated that these scales were associated with large effect sizes for differentiating veterans who overreported from those with PTSD and for differentiating between mental health professionals and veterans with PTSD. Implications of these results in terms of clinical practice are discussed.