Dimensional representations of DSM-IV personality disorders: relationships to functional impairment. Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • OBJECTIVE: This study compared three-dimensional representations of DSM-IV personality disorders and standard categories with respect to their associations with psychosocial functioning. METHOD: Six hundred sixty-eight patients with semistructured interview diagnoses of schizotypal, borderline, avoidant, or obsessive-compulsive personality disorders or with major depressive disorder and no personality disorder completed questionnaires assessing three-factor and five-factor dimensional models of personality. Personality disorder categories, dimensional representations of the categories based on criteria counts, and three- and five-factor personality dimensions were compared on their relationships to impairment in seven domains of functioning, as measured by the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation-Baseline Version. RESULTS: Both the categorical and dimensional representations of DSM-IV personality disorders had stronger relationships to impairment in functioning in the domains of employment, social relationships with parents and friends, and global social adjustment and to DSM-IV axis V ratings than the three- and five-factor models. DSM-IV dimensions predicted functional impairment best of the four approaches. Although five-factor personality traits captured variance in functional impairment not predicted by DSM-IV personality disorder dimensions, the DSM-IV dimensions accounted for significantly more variance than the measures of personality. CONCLUSIONS: Scores on dimensions of general personality functioning do not appear to be as strongly associated with functional impairment as the psychopathology of DSM personality disorder. A compromise in the ongoing debate over categories versus dimensions of personality disorder might be the dimensional rating of the criteria that comprise traditional categories.

published proceedings

  • Am J Psychiatry

author list (cited authors)

  • Skodol, A. E., Oldham, J. M., Bender, D. S., Dyck, I. R., Stout, R. L., Morey, L. C., ... Gunderson, J. G.

citation count

  • 167

complete list of authors

  • Skodol, Andrew E||Oldham, John M||Bender, Donna S||Dyck, Ingrid R||Stout, Robert L||Morey, Leslie C||Shea, M Tracie||Zanarini, Mary C||Sanislow, Charles A||Grilo, Carlos M||McGlashan, Thomas H||Gunderson, John G

publication date

  • October 2005