Abstract: Soldiers are the major part of the army, and they are crucial for battle effectiveness. Previous studies have shown that psychiatric disorders are the major factors to influence soldiers’ mental health in China. Therefore, in order to improve the quality of Chinese soldiers, it is important and necessary to adopt psychological measurement system for recruiting new soldiers. So far, schizophrenia is the largest type of mental disorders in Chinese soldiers. These patients often have a specific personality basis before the onset. The objective of our research is to develop a personality inventory to evaluate personality deviation of candidates and to predict their adaptability in the military service.
Method
A structured questionnaire including 207 items was established on the basis of the results of previous investigation and interviewing 10 clinical psychiatrists and psychologists who have more than five years’ work experience. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested for 175 schizophrenic patients and 2868 recruits. To test the prediction of the questionnaire, the longitudinal evaluation was made by Soldiers Job Performance Questionnaire (SJPQ) for new soldiers after they joined the army for 3 months and 12 months.
Results
The normal subjects and schizophrenic patients were well differentiated by the high-score interval in three personality scales. The Cronbach’s α coefficients in the various branch scales were ranged between 0.64~0.86 (P<0.01). The averaged test—retest reliability coefficient was 0.74. As the high-order factor analysis divided the personality scales into three dimensions and eight factors, all scores in these factors were significantly higher for the schizophrenics and maladjustment recruits than for normal subjects and good adjustment soldiers, respectively. The total predictive accordance ratio and predictive qualification accordance ratio was above 98%，and the lowest predictive eliminate accordance ratio was 70.13%.
Conclusions
The personality measurement is to evaluate the schizoid personality deviation for recruit candidates. The personality inventory developed in this research had good validity and reliability, and the predictive coincidence rate was relatively high in terms of the adjustability for recruits and soldiers. Therefore, it was suitable to be used for selecting recruits

Key words: recruits, personality measurement, reliability, validity, predictability