The role of the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) in predicting and better understanding engagement in posttraumatic stress disorder treatment.

Abstract

The ability of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008/2011) scores to predict treatment engagement in veterans referred for empirically supported treatments for symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was examined. Early withdrawal from treatment and process factors, such as adherence and therapy session attendance, were examined in 100 veterans seeking treatment for trauma-related symptoms who were referred to a Veterans Health Administration medical center’s tertiary care clinic for Prolonged Exposure (PE) or Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). Veterans who scored higher on MMPI-2-RF scales associated with emotional/internalizing problems were more likely to be referred to PE or CPT, but individuals with the highest scores on those scales were also more likely to withdraw before completing treatment. These findings suggest Harkness and Lilienfeld’s (1997) call to use personality assessment to guide treatment planning holds promise to better understand treatment engagement.

MMPI-2-RF validity scales add utility for predicting treatment engagement during partial psychiatric hospitalizations.

“…The original and revised forms of these scales have been repeatedly validated for high-stakes forensic applications (Arbisi et al, 2006;Sharf et al, 2017). Despite the presumed utility for informing pretreatment assessments, there are relatively few research studies evaluating the MMPI-2-RF as a tool for predicting treatment engagement (Anestis et al, 2015;Arbisi et al, 2022;Patel & Suhr, 2020;Tylicki et al, 2019). Validity scales could be uniquely valuable in this regard.…”

“…Thus, we sought to demonstrate the degree to which indicators of over-or underreporting with heightened relevance for psychiatric hospitalizations have incremental utility for predicting treatment variables beyond the diagnostic clinical impressions of referral sources. We hypothesized Fp-r would be independently associated with less consistent behavioral engagement during the partial hospitalization, greater endorsements of symptomatology at discharge, and more frequent mental health encounters with VA providers following discharge (Anestis et al, 2015;Arbisi et al, 2022). We hypothesized that elevations on L-r and K-r would be independently associated with fewer endorsements of symptomatology (i.e., negative association; Khazem, Rufino, et al, 2021).…”