Speech-Language Clinician Personality Variables and Clinical Effectiveness

¹ Caddo Parrish Schools, Shreveport, Louisiana
² The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

The relationship between judged clinical effectiveness and personality variables as determined by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was studied in a population of 130 female graduate students in speech-language pathology from nine universities in six different states. An MMPI profile analysis for the total group indicated that the group was similar to other female graduate student populations and that the typical student, while being manifestly normal, might be described as being rather passive, compliant, stereotypically feminine, sensitive, anxious, highly imaginative, creative, and energetic. Although no single MMPI scale was found to differentiate between subject clinical effectiveness groups, the subjects' MMPI profiles were found to predict accurately the clinical effectiveness group to which the subjects were assigned.