A multimethod evaluation of the MMPI in a chronic pain patient sample

Previous reports on the use of the MMPI with chronic pain patients have produced a variety of results. No single configural feature or scale identifies the chronic pain patient, regardless of the origin or verifiability of the etiology of the pain. Elevations on the neurotic triad occur frequently, but do not have the specificity of more recently reported chronic-pain subtypes on the MMPI. The present nonexperimental study (N = 72) provides an example of a multi-method analysis of a carefully selected sample of chronic pain patients without physical findings. Blind clinical analysis, simple two-point code aggregation, and multivariate profile methods were used and produced similar subtypes of the sample and understanding of the data. The obtained sample subtypes were similar to those found in other studies and were hypothesized to be related to each other along an underlying continuum of what might be depression. Further research is needed to facilitate understanding of the causation of chronic pain of obscure origin.