Psychological assessment of the burn patient

Emotional and intellectual responses of 25 burn patients, 16 males and 9 females, were assessed with the MMPI and the six verbal subtests of the WAIS. These measures were administered upon hospital admission and 11 to 12 months after discharge. Data analysis entailed Hotelling's T2 tests for paired observations, paired t-tests and product-moment correlations. Results did not reveal the emotional and intellectual deterioration commonly reported in the literature. The composite group MMPI profiles were essentially normal at both administrations with significant pre-post increments on the L Scale, Scale 9 and Scale 0, p less than .05. Male patients did not show significant pre-post changes, while females showed a significant pre-post increment on Scale 0, p less than .05, which indicates increased social orientation and gregariousness. Patients as a group showed significant pre-post increments on the Information (p less than .05) and Digit Span (p less than .01) subtests of the WAIS. Males demonstrated more dramatic increases than did females. Discrepancies between these findings and those reported by other investigators are attributed to the use of young children as participants in other studies, the absence of discernible premorbid factors that have been associated with post-trauma adjustment difficulties in other investigations and possible differential effectiveness of psychological intervention during hospitalization. The WAIS and MMPI were found to be sensitive to the emotional and intellectual changes experienced by participants, which suggests their application to assess the psychological aspects of the burn patient's recovery.