Identification of mental disorders in an in-patient prison psychiatric unit: Examining the criterion-related validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory.

Identifying inmates with mental disorders is a crucial function of correctional mental health services. This study examined the utility of several theoretically relevant scales and subscales of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991, 2007) to identify various broad diagnostic categories (i.e., mood, psychotic, and substance use disorders) in a sample of prisoners in an inpatient psychiatric facility (N = 57). Results indicated moderate effect sizes and classification accuracy for most but not all PAI scales and subscales. Experimental scales for the detection of substance use disorders performed worse than the PAI Drug Problems scale in isolation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)