Early Parent Death and the Clinical Scales of the MMPI

Abstract

There is growing evidence that early parent death can affect the severity of adult depressive illness. It was anticipated, therefore, that early-bereaved depressed patients might score higher on certain MMPI clinical scales than non-bereaved, depressed controls matched for age and sex. This is shown to be the case, the most affected scales being Hypochondriasis and Paranoia. Hypochondriasis is shown to be more strongly associated with early father death, while Paranoia is associated equally with mother and father death. There is some suggestion that early mother death is also associated with elevation of the F score. Early parent death is shown to have no effect upon the MMPI scores of non-depressed patients.