The efficacy of a neuropsychological symptom inventory in the differential diagnosis of neurological, depressed, and normal patients.

This study examined the efficacy of using a symptom inventory to discriminate between neurological, depressed, and normal patients. Symptoms such as hallucinations, numbness of extremities, balance problems, and a localized place on head sensitive to touch were identified as the best predictors of the neurologically impaired patients when compared to the depressed and normal groups. Similarly, sleep problems was the best predictor of the depressed group. Using a step-wise discriminant analysis, a total of 91% of the patients were correctly diagnosed on the basis of reported symptoms. These results were discussed in terms of the overlap in symptomology between the neurological and psychiatric groups and the relative efficiency of using a self-report measure in making differential diagnoses.