Predictors of psychiatric illness among Navy hospital corpsmen

Evaluated Recruit Temperament Survey (RTS) responses and aptitude test scores as potential predictors of psychiatric illness among 1,082 Navy hospital corpsmen. Twenty-six RTS items discriminated significantly between those corpsmen who became psychiatric casualties during a 4-year criterion period and those who did not; these items appeared to assess a construct of preservice personal and vocational adjustment. Scores on the aptitude measure were unrelated to illness incidence. The validity of the discriminating RTS items taken in combination for predicting psychiatric hospitalization among corpsmen was .28 with a cross-validity of .22. Implications of these findings for the use of measures such as the RTS in psychiatric screening were discussed.