Disability payments for psychiatric patients: is patient assessment affected?

Collected data for 348 veterans who had been patients at a psychiatric hospital: MMPI results, number of days of hospitalization already past when the MMPI was taken, length of the entire hospitalization during which the MMPI was taken are amount of disability payment at the time of the MMPI, and number of hospitalizations to date. The amount of disability payments was correlated significantly with the MMPI scales associated with psychosis. Veterans who were not receiving disability payments but who later obtained payments appeared more severely psychiatric on the MMPI than others without payments, but were less willing to report their strengths. Those who received only small payments failed to report improvement in the early part of hospitalization and were hospitalized disproportionately to their symptoms, unlike those with maximum payments or rejected claims for payments. It is concluded that patients eligible for larges payments may alter their self reports, but that disability payments nonetheless are awarded only in proportion to actual impairment.