Questionnaire Measures and Psychiatrists' Ratings of a Personality Dimension
A Note on the Congruent Validity of Caine's Self Description Questionnaire
WILLIAM BARRETT M.A.1,
JOHN CALDBECK-MEENAN M.D., D.P.M.2, and
JOHN GRAHAM WHITE B.A., Ed.M.3
1 Psychologist, Department of Mental Health, The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland., Education Department, County Offices, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.
2 Senior Tutor in Psychiatry, Department of Mental Health, The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland
3 Psychologist and Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Department of Mental Health, The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland
The Maudsley Personality Inventory and Caine's Hysteroid-Obsessoid Questionnaire were administered to Territorial Army personnel, of whom a random sample was interviewed by a Territorial Army psychiatrist and a civilian psychiatrist. Subjects were rated at interview in hysteroid-obsessed terms, using Caine's rating scale. A highly significant positive correlation was found between the MPI "E" scale and the HOQ, confirming Caine's results with neurotic psychiatric patients. Only the correlation between the hysteroid-obsessoid rating scale and the MPI "E" scale reached an acceptable level of significance, and then only when the rating was in the hands of the Territorial Army psychiatrist. Interjudge reliability between the rating scale assessments of the two psychiatrists was found to be practically nonexistent.
Submitted on April 30, 1965
