The separation of organics from depressives with ability- and personality-based tests.

Previous research has indicated that ability-oriented organicity tests are of limited value in the separation of brain-damaged from schizophrenic patients in psychiatric hospitals. In the present study the capabilities of nine ability test measures and the MMPI Depression scale to differentiate organics from depressives were evaluated. Only six of the nine ts used to evaluate the differences between the two groups were significant at the 0.5 level and, after the samples were levelled for age, education and IQ, the number fell to zero. In contrast, the Depression scale differences were highly significant both before and after levelling. Multiple correlations run to evaluate the use of personality and ability measures in combination showed that they had considerable promise and suggest that the separation of organic from functional psychiatric hospital groups is best achieved by such combinations.