An Investigation of Adherence to Diagnostic Criteria: Clinical Diagnosis of the DSM-III Personality Disorders

The degree to which DMS-III criteria are followed in diagnosing personality disorders was examined by obtaining diagnostic material from a national sample of clinicians. A total of 291 patients with personality disorders were clinically diagnosed by clinicians familiar with their history, and then the clinicians were queried about the presence or absence of each of the DSM-III criteria for the specific personality disorders in their patients. The results revealed much incongruity between clinical diagnoses and diagnoses derived from DSM-III criteria. An intensive examination of the assignment of selected personality disorder diagnoses revealed that in most cases these inconsistencies were primarily related to the symptomatic presentation of the patient, rather than to demographic characteristics such as gender or socioeconomic status.

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