Diagnoses as moderators of the relationship between biographical variables and psychiatric decision in a combat zone.

Abstract

The present study attempted to evaluate the relationships of biographical variables to psychiatric decisions in the natural setting of a combat zone. In an overall analysis, the decision to return a man to combat duty was found to be highly related to biographical variables, and the nature of these relationships when cross-validated were found to have low, but significant, reliability. Three diagnostic groups were analyzed separately in terms of their idiosyncratic effect as moderators of the biographical-variable-dispositional-decision relationship. The evidence suggested that biographical variables were salient in such a decision depending on whether the diagnostic group was character disorder or neurotic. Multiple regression analysis of the overall patient group permitted an improvement in the "hit" rate of decisions when compared to the base rate; utilization of diagnoses as moderators, in turn, permitted further improvement in the hit rate as compared with the overall analysis.