Personality test correlates of psychiatric outpatient status

Frequencies of stanine scores for 10 Comrey Personality Scales (CPS) were compared separately by sex for 394 psychiatric outpatients (mean age 31 yrs) and 748 normals from the original CPS normative group (A. L. Comrey, 1970). In both sexes, outpatients had significantly more high scores on Response Bias, Orderliness vs Lack of Compulsion, and Social Conformity vs Rebelliousness and more low scores on Activity vs Lack of Energy, Emotional Stability vs Neuroticism, and Extraversion vs Introversion. Female outpatients also had more low scores on Trust vs Defensiveness and male outpatients had more low scores on Masculinity vs Femininity. Outpatients had more extreme scores over all CPS scales than normals. It is concluded that tests of normal personality traits have considerable potential utility for screening, diagnosis, and design of clinical interventions. (20 ref)