Brief mental health index.

Administered the Cornell Medical Index (CMI) to 630 Navy psychiatric patients and 454 healthy controls. Patient and control samples were split into 2 groups for cross-validation purposes, and 2 methods, regression analysis and a new item selection technique called SEQUIN, were applied to the problem of selecting the most discriminating set of CMI items. The percentages correctly classified "sick" or "well" when results from Sample 1 were used to predict Sample 2 and vice versa were 82 and 85% by the regression method and 86 and 86% by the SEQUIN method. 7 items, perhaps representing general attributes defining mental illness in the Navy culture, contributed significantly to the predictive scales regardless of particular item selection method or sample. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)