Assessment of substance abuse in psychotherapy clients: The effectiveness of the MMPI-2 substance abuse scales

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) contains 3 scales, the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale-Revised (MAC-R), the Addiction Potential Scale (APS), and the Addiction Acknowledgement Scale (AAS), that were developed to identify alcohol and drug abusing individuals. The current study was designed to measure the effectiveness of these scales at detecting substance abuse problems in a community-based mental health sample. MAC-R, APS, and AAS scores were obtained from 64 therapists who identified 68 substance abusing and 392 nonabusing psychotherapy clients. The results indicated that mean scores on all 3 scales were higher for the substance abusers than for nonabusers. Furthermore, discriminant analysis found all 3 scales to be effective screening tools. The AAS was the best single predictor, and a combination of the AAS and MAC-R provided the best overall discrimination. The implications of early substance abuse detection on treatment effectiveness are discussed.