The presence of DSM-III-R personality disorders among nonclinical subjects: A comparison of interview and psychometric classification
Abstract
The diagnosis of personality disorders is difficult and suffers from poor interrater agreement. This has led some researchers to call for the development of structured interviews to enhance interrater agreement. The present study used the Structured Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders-Revised (SIDP-R; Pfohl, Blum, Zimmerman, & Stangl, 1989) to evaluate the clinical and/or subclinical level of personality disorders characteristic of college students from a nonclinical setting. Elevations on the MMPI-1 Personality Disorder Scales (Morey, Waugh, & Blashfield, 1985) were used to identify a borderline group and a schizotypal group. Elevations on the Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation Psychosis Proneness Scale (Chapman, Chapman, Numbers, Edell, Carpenter, & Fisher-Beckfield, 1984) were used to form a Per-Mag group. These index groups were then compared to controls on their MMPI-1 clinical and validity scale scores and to their responses on the SIDP-R. Diagnostic efficiency statistics were employed to evaluate the relative utility of the two MMPI-1 Personality Disorder scales and the Per-Mag scale in the classification of personality disorders. The results indicated that few subjects reported sufficient symptomatology to warrant a personality disorder diagnosis. However, most subjects in the three index groups and few of the normal subjects met subclinical diagnoses on the SIDP-R disorders. In terms of diagnostic efficiency, the results of this study suggested that the MMPI-1 Borderline and Schizotypal Scales may be useful screening measures for the identification of subclinical and clinical levels of personality disturbance. However, with this nonclinical population, the utility of the MMPI-1 Borderline scale in identifying specific personality disorders was limited. The MMPI-1 Schizotypal scale had an impressive ability to identify subjects with paranoid personality disorder as well as those with other Cluster A disorders. The validity of the Per-Mag scale is very questionable given that subjects identified by this scale did not differ from normal controls in their incidence rate of any personality disorder as measured by the SIDP-R. These results have implications for the dimensional versus categorical classification systems.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Merritt, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Psychological tests
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