Comparing the Rorschachs and the MMPI-2s of assaulted and non-assaulted females on variables associated with PTSD

Previous studies have indicated a high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among civilian survivors of trauma. Among the psychometric instruments used to assess the characteristics of subjects diagnosed with PTSD are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the Rorschach Inkblot Test. However, few studies have employed both instruments to assess PTSD symptomatology in a civilian group of trauma survivors, and no single study has used both instruments to assess PTSD symptoms in female survivors of physical assault (i.e., battering or rape) or to discriminate between assault survivors and non-assaulted subjects in a female clinical population. This study investigated the abilities of the two tests to differentiate assaulted females (n=12) from non-assaulted females (n=20) in a group of subjects from a clinical population. It also sought to determine if subjects in the assaulted group were more likely than subjects in the non-assaulted group to exhibit a pattern of scores indicative of PTSD on either MMPI-2 or Rorschach variables. Multivariate analyses indicated that neither instrument differentiated between the two groups on variables associated with PTSD or revealed a significantly different pattern of scores for assaulted women when compared to nonassaulted women. T-tests performed on individual variables suggest that, on some Rorschach variables, the response of subjects in assaulted group was different than the non-assaulted group.