The classification accuracy of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent: effects of modifying the normative sample

Numerous studies have reported that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) produces a high frequency of within-normal-limits basic scale profiles for adolescents with significant clinical pathology (e.g., Archer, 2005). The current study builds on the observation that the MMPI-A normative sample included participants who reported a recent history of referral for counseling or therapy services. The 193 adolescents who reported referral for counseling were removed from the normative sample and uniform T-score values were recalculated for basic clinical scale raw scores. The frequency of within-normal-limits profiles was only marginally reduced by using the revised MMPI-A norms. Furthermore, the overall hit rate, positive predictive power, and sensitivity were only slightly improved by removing normative participants referred for counseling and basing norms on the remaining 1,427 adolescents.