Groupings of Psychiatric Nomenclature Classifications: Cluster Analyses of Psychiatric Subjective Ratio Scales

Abstract

Three psychiatric judgmental ratio scales (impairment-severity, constitutionality, and susceptibilty to external stress) involving 15 functional psychosis classifications as stimuli were unidimensionally cluster analyzed. These scales were based on the scaled judgments (magnitude estimations) of 87 senior psychiatrists. Four-five clusters emerged with each scale. These analyses were computed from similarity measures (derived from scale values) which denoted degree of similarity between stimuli on a scale. A multidimensional cluster analysis based on averaged (across scales) similarity measures was also accomplished. All cluster analyses (unidimensional and multidimensional) appeared to group stimuli (classifications) into meaningful clusters.