Personality Characteristics of Alcohol Dependent Inpatients: Relationship of MCMI Subtypes to Self-Reported Drinking Behavior

Abstract

Recent cluster analytic research with alcoholic inpatients has demonstrated the existence of several Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) clusters that appear to be consistent across different subject samples. The validity of these data would be strengthened by a statistical demonstration of the similarity of attained clusters across studies--a demonstration of concordance of subject classification across different clustering techniques on the same data set- and the inclusion of external, independent measures against which to evaluate the predictive validity of the cluster typology. We found a high level of concordance in subject classification across different clustering methods on the same data set and a high level of agreement with cluster typologies attained in previous studies. Subsequent multivariate analyses employing independent scales measuring various aspects of alcohol use confirmed differences among cluster members on perceived benefits of alcohol use and deleterious effects of alcohol use. The prominent differences in alcohol use along with a rationale for their development are discussed.

Substance Abuse Problems, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Post-Treatment Status in MCMI Psychopathology Subgroups of Cocaine Dependent Males

“…In contrast, those in the Subclinical group revealed a comparatively much higher rate of non-relapse (46%) and a substantially lower rate of loss to follow-up (18%) (see Table 3). (6,(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). Membership in the antisocial cluster subgroup was not associated with elevated levels of substance abuse related problems at intake or with significantly low post-treatment abstinence rates in the current study.…”

“…An antisocial cluster subgroup has been linked with high alcohol consumption rates (13,16), serious alcohol problems (13), and drug treatment nonresponse in one study involving predominantly male Caucasian opiate abusers (8) but not in another in which African-American male participants were in the majority (18). Neurotic cluster subgroup membership has been linked to solitary drinking among alcohol abusers (12), and longer opiate use histories, more medical and psychological problems, and less favorable treatment response among opiate addicts (8). A subclinical cluster subgroup has revealed fewer psychological problems and less severe consequences associated with substance use and favorable treatment response (8,16).…”

“…One useful approach has been to cluster analyze MCMI records in various groups of substance abusers. Such efforts have often identified four clinically coherent subgroups: high psychopathology, antisocial, neurotic, and subclinical (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). A high psychopathology subgroup has been found to be associated with comorbid psychiatric diagnoses including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, greater depression, more suicide attempts, more previous psychiatric and drug treatments, and drug treatment nonresponse (8).…”

Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III Subtypes of Opioid Dependence: Validity and Matching to Behavioral Therapies.

“…The comparison of cluster solutions on the concurrent validity variables helped determine whether increasing numbers of clusters were accompanied by increasing validity. We also considered the number of cases assigned to each cluster and regarded with a suspicion of unreliability (i.e., unlikely to generalize to other samples) any solution with subtypes consisting of fewer than 10% of the entire sample.Some studies have cluster analyzed the Axis I and II scales separately (Donat et al, 1991;Mayer & Scott, 1988), whereas others have combined them (Bartsch & Hoffman, 1985;Craig et al, 1985Craig et al, , 1997Donat, 1988). We first analyzed the axes separately to determine whether the empirically derived clusters resembled the a priori Axis I and II protocol-sorted subtypes.…”

Trastornos de personalidad en alcohólicos : un estudio descriptivo

“…Por ello, el objetivo de este estudio es conocer la comorbilidad de las alteraciones de personalidad con la adicción al alcohol. Para ello se utiliza el MCMI-II (Millón, 1997), que constituye un instrumento de amplio uso en este ámbito (Donat, Walters y Hume, 1991;Matano, Locke y Schwartz, 1994). Este trabajo forma parte de un estudio más amplio sobre las características psicopatológicas y de personalidad de los alcohólicos, en el que se incluyen entrevistas diagnósticas específicas para los trastornos de personalidad -el IPDE (Loranger, 1995)-, con el objetivo de identificar los trastornos de personalidad que afectan en mayor medida a este tipo de pacientes, así como valorar las variables que se relacionan de forma significativa con los mismos.…”