Cluster analytic methods applied to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory in a psychiatric population

Cluster analysis and the MMPI were used together to determine whether the heterogeneous diagnostic groups could be identified in an inpatient psychiatric population. The effectiveness of four clustering techniques in separating diagnostic groups was compared using percent of coverage, between-sample replication, between-method replication, cluster differences on age, and cluster differences on diagnosis. The results showed cluster analysis to be a poor diagnostic discriminator when compared to diagnostic groups, which were considered the "true" clusters of the sample. The final conclusion of the study was that cluster analysis should not be used to form groups that would be diagnostically labeled because each analytic technique produced misleading results.