Personality Assessment Inventory profiles of therapy -seeking women with childhood sexual abuse histories

This study investigated the usefulness of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) in detecting the presence of clinical profile patterns in therapy-seeking women with histories of childhood sexual abuse. An outpatient sample of 214 female college students completed the PAI as part of a university counseling center intake procedure. Participants were evenly divided into two groups according to self-reported history of childhood sexual abuse. Results of a two-way multivariate analysis of variance for abuse history showed that the average scores across the PAI's 22 scales were higher for women with childhood sexual abuse histories than for women without such histories. A series of univariate analyses of variance were conducted to assess for individual PAI scale and subscale group differences. Women with childhood sexual abuse histories scored significantly higher than women with no childhood sexual abuse histories on four scales: (a) Negative Impression Management, (b) Anxiety-Related Disorders, (c) Paranoia, and (d) Borderline Features. They also scored higher on five subscales: (a) Traumatic Stress, (b) Hypervigilance, (c) Persecution, (d) Affective Instability, and (e) Negative Relationships. Using as predictors the four scales on which significant group differences were identified, a two-stage discriminant function analysis significantly predicted childhood sexual abuse group membership with 67% accuracy. A visual examination of Cluster profile membership identified no difference in the profile distribution between groups. In addition, no significant group differences in DSM-IV (1994) Axis I diagnoses were identified. The most common diagnosis for women in each group was major depressive disorder. Findings suggest the clinical utility of the PAI in assessing clinical symptomatology in therapy-seeking adult female survivors of childhood sexual victimization. Research and therapeutic implications are discussed.