The Brave New World of Personality Disorder-Trait Specified: Effects of Additional Definitions on Coverage, Prevalence, and Comorbidity

Competing Models of Personality Disorder: Relations With Psychosocial Functioning

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), includes 10 categorical personality disorders (PD) in Section II (Section II PD) and a dimensional alternative model of PD (AMPD) in Section III. We compared the two models in explaining concurrent psychosocial functioning levels in psychiatric outpatients and community residents screened as at risk for PD pathology (N = 600). The AMPD's fully dimensional form showed stronger associations with psychosocial difficulties and explained more of their variance compared with the categorical Section II PD. AMPD Criterion A (personality functioning impairment) and Criterion B (pathological traits) incrementally predicted psychosocial functioning about equally with some unique predictions. Finally, AMPD's six categorical PD diagnoses did not show stronger associations with psychosocial functioning than the corresponding Section II PD diagnoses. Findings directly comparing the two models remain important and timely for informing future conceptualizations of PD in the diagnostic system.

Personality disorder coverage, prevalence, and convergence: do the DSM-5's two models of personality disorder identify the same patients?

BACKGROUND

Research on the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) in DSM-5's Section-III has demonstrated acceptable interrater reliability, a largely consistent latent structure, substantial correlations with theoretically and clinically relevant measures, and evidence for incremental concurrent and predictive validity after controlling for DSM-5's Section II categorical personality disorders (PDs). However, the AMPD is not yet widely used clinically. One clinician concern may be caseness - that the new model will diagnose a different set of PD patients from that with which they are familiar. The primary aim of this study is to determine whether this concern is valid, by testing how well the two models converge in terms of prevalence and coverage.

METHOD

Participants were 305 psychiatric outpatients and 302 community residents not currently in mental-health treatment who scored above threshold on the Iowa Personality Disorder Screen (Langbehn et al., ). Participants were administered a semi-structured interview for DSM-5 PD, which was scored for both Section II and III PDs.

RESULTS

Convergence across the two PD models was variable for specific PDs, Good when specific PDs were aggregated, and Very Good for 'any PD.'

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide strong evidence that the AMPD yields the same overall prevalence of PD as the current model and, further, identifies largely the same overall population. It also addresses well-known problems of the current model, is more consistent with the ICD-11 PD model, and provides more complete, individualized characterizations of persons with PD, thereby offering multiple reasons for its implementation in clinical settings.

Associations of antidepressant medication consumption with changes in personality pathology and quality of life among community-dwelling adults

BACKGROUND

Although antidepressant medication (ADM) has produced small advantages over pill placebo in randomized controlled trials, consuming ADM has predicted prospectively increasing depressive symptom severity in samples of community-dwelling adults.

OBJECTIVE

We extended the community literature by testing ADM's relations to changes in personality and quality of life that may underpin depression.

METHOD

In this longitudinal, observational study, community-dwelling adults (N = 601) were assessed twice, 8 months apart on average. Assessments included depressive symptoms, personality, life satisfaction and quality, and prescription medication consumption.

RESULTS

Consuming ADM at time 1 predicted relative increases in depressive symptoms (dysphoria), maladaptive traits (negative affect, negative temperament, disinhibition, low conscientiousness), personality dysfunction (non-coping, self-pathology), and decreases in life satisfaction and quality from time 1 to 2, before and after adjustment for age, gender, race, income, education, physical health problems, and use of other psychotropics. In no analysis did ADM use predict better outcomes.

CONCLUSION

Among community-dwelling adults, ADM use is a risk factor for psychosocial deterioration in domains including depressive symptoms, personality pathology, and quality of life. Until mechanisms connecting ADM to poor outcomes in community samples are understood, additional caution in use of ADM and consideration of empirically supported non-pharmacologic treatments is prudent.

Cross-walking personality disorder types to ICD-11 trait domains: An overview of current findings

The ICD-11 has adopted a classification of Personality Disorders (PD) that abolishes the established categorical PD types in favor of global severity classification with specification of individual trait domains. To facilitate and guide this profound transition, an overview of current research on empirical associations between established PD types and ICD-11 trait domains seems warranted. We identified a total of 9 relevant studies from 2018 to 2022, which were based on both clinical and community samples from U.S., China, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, Korea, and Canada. The patterns of associations with ICD-11 trait domains were systematically synthesized and portrayed for each PD type. Findings overall showed expected and conceptually meaningful associations between categorical PD types and ICD-11 trait domains, with only few deviations. Based on these findings, we propose a cross-walk for translating categorical PD types into ICD-11 trait domains. More research is needed in order to further guide continuity and translation between ICD-10 and ICD-11 PD classification in mental healthcare, including facet-level ICD-11 trait information. Moreover, the nine reviewed studies only relied on self-reported ICD-11 trait domains, which should be expanded with clinician-rated trait domains in future research. Finally, future research should also take ICD-11's essential PD severity classification into account.

Temperaments and characters: incompatible or complementary components for criterion B of the alternative model in predicting DSM-5 section II personality disorders?

BACKGROUND

Many studies have found clear correspondence among the domains of the five-factor model of personality (FFM) and the alternative model of personality disorders (AMPD) in DSM-5-III, which is assessed with the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5). However, very few studies have compared the PID-5 with the other well-known established dimensional models of personality such as Cloninger's model. The present study examined whether the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-125) dimensions, PID-5 dimensions, or a combination would represent PD-scale scores more accurately.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

In this regard, 437 college students completed the Persian version of the PID-5, TCI-125 and SCID-II Screening Questionnaire.RESULTS The results indicated that cooperativeness (low), self-directedness (low), and self-transcendence (high) characters of the TCI-125 and the psychoticism (high) domain of the PID-5 are the most consistent predictors of all PD-scale scores.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the findings showed that an integrative model, combining dimensions of the TCI-125 and PID-5, represented the features of PD-scale scores most effectively.

Personality Inventory for DSM-5 in China: Evaluation of DSM-5 and ICD-11 Trait Structure and Continuity With Personality Disorder Types

The Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 (PID-5) is an established tool for assessing personality disorder (PD) traits that was developed based on section III of the DSM-5. It is composed of 220 items, organized into 25 facets, which are distributed among five domains. The psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PID-5 remain to be demonstrated. Two samples were embodied in this study that included 3,550 undergraduates and 406 clinical patients. To probe the structure of the PID-5, parallel analyses were conducted to explore the unidimensionality of its 25 facets and a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were carried out to confirm the 25 lower-order facets and their distribution among five higher-order domains. Then, the PID-5 was employed to measure the DSM-5 and ICD-11 trait models and to explore the relationship of DSM-IV categorical PDs with DSM-5 and ICD-11 personality traits. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to probe how well DSM-IV categorical PDs correspond with maladaptive personality traits specified in the DSM-5 and five ICD-11 domains. The respective average internal reliability coefficients of the 25 facets obtained for undergraduate and clinical patient samples were 0.76 and 0.81, those obtained for the five DSM-5 domains were 0.89 and 0.91, and those obtained for the five ICD-11 domains were 0.87 and 0.89. Serial CFAs confirmed the rationality of the PID-5's lower-order 25-facet structure and higher-order five-domain structure in both samples. Correlation and regression analyses showed that DSM-5 specified traits explain the variance in PD presentation with a manifold stronger correlation (R ² = 0.24-0.44) than non-specified traits (R ² = 0.04-0.12). Overall, the PID-5 was shown to be a reliable, stable, and structurally valid assessment tool that captures pathological personality traits related to DSM-5 and ICD-11 PDs.

The Inter-Rater Reliability and Validity of the Italian Translation of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders Module I and Module II: A Preliminary Report on Consecutively Admitted Psychotherapy Outpatients

To evaluate the reliability and convergent validity of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (SCID-5-AMPD) Module I and Module II, 88 adult psychotherapy participants were administered the Italian translations of the SCID-5-AMPD Module I and Module II, Level of Personality Functioning Scale-Brief Form (LPFS-BF), Level of Personality Functioning Scale-Self Report (LPFS-SF), Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4+ (PDQ-4+), and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Personality Disorders (SCID-5-PD) relying on a Williams crossover design. SCID-5-AMPD Module I and Module II showed excellent inter-rater reliability. In terms of convergent validity, meaningful associations were observed between SCID-5-AMPD Module I scores and self-report measures of Criterion A; similarly, SCID-5-AMPD Module II trait scores were meaningfully related to PID-5 trait scores. As a whole, our preliminary findings supported the clinical utility of DSM-5 AMPD.

Assessment of Criterion A

The diagnostic concept of Personality Disorder (PD) is changing. A dimensional PD concept that focuses on severity of impairment of personality functioning was introduced in the DSM 5 Section III in 2013 and is adopted by the upcoming ICD-11 in a similar manner. Several reliable, valid and useful instruments to assess personality functioning (Criterion A) either as self-report, expert rating or clinical interview were developed in the past years. This article gives a latest state-of-the-art overview of these measures. It underlines the importance of multi-informant multi-method assessment of, and a longitudinal perspective on PD pathology and the importance of standardized inclusion of PD individuals in studies to increase the significance of research findings.

Dissociating Profiles of Social Cognitive Disturbances Between Mixed Personality and Anxiety Disorder

BACKGROUND

An emerging body of research has begun to elucidate disturbances to social cognition in specific personality disorders (PDs). No research has been conducted on patients with Mixed Personality Disorder (MPD), however, who meet multiple diagnostic criteria. Further, very few studies have compared social cognition between patients with PD and those presenting with symptomatic diagnoses that co-occur with personality pathologies, such as anxiety disorder (AD). The aim of this study was to provide a detailed characterization of deficits to various aspects of social cognition in MPD and dissociate impairments specific to MPD from those exhibited by patients with AD who differ in the severity of personality pathology.

METHOD

Building on our previous research, we administered a large battery of self-report and performance-based measures of social cognition to age-, sex- and education-matched groups of patients with MPD or AD, and healthy control participants (HCs; n = 29, 23, and 54, respectively). This permitted a detailed profiling of these clinical groups according to impairments in emotion recognition and regulation, imitative control, low-level visual perspective taking, and empathic awareness and expression.

RESULTS

The MPD group demonstrated poorer emotion recognition for negative facial expressions relative to both HCs and AD. Compared with HCs, both clinical groups also performed significantly worse in visual perspective taking and interference resolution, and reported higher personal distress when empathizing and more state-oriented emotion regulation.

CONCLUSION

We interpret our results to reflect dysfunctional cognitive control that is common to patients with both MPD and AD. Given the patterns of affective dispositions that characterize these two diagnostic groups, we suggest that prolonged negative affectivity is associated with inflexible styles of emotion regulation and attribution. This might potentiate the interpersonal dysfunction exhibited in MPD, particularly in negatively valenced and challenging social situations.

Personality profiles as potential targets for intervention: Identification and replication

The alternative dimensional model of personality disorder (PD) diagnosis, based on personality-functioning impairment and pathological traits, opens the door for tailoring treatments to individuals with more homogeneous personality profiles than diagnostic categories. Such a transdiagnostic PD treatment approach requires robust, replicable, personality-relevant dimensions, which we found using a large battery of self-report measures: Self-pathology and negative affectivity (NA) traits, interpersonal pathology and detachment traits, and interpersonal pathology and antagonism traits. Using these dimensions, we identified three groups that had, respectively, elevations on (1) all three dimensions, (2) self-pathology/NA (with/without interpersonal-pathology elevation(s)) and (3) either or both interpersonal-pathology dimensions, without elevated self-pathology/NA. Using the same personality-functioning measures and a half-overlapping trait set, we replicated these profiles in an additional sample. Interview-based measures of functioning and personality pathology provided external validity evidence for the method, suggesting it represents a critical first step towards treatment research targeting transdiagnostic processes rather than diagnoses. For example, two groups might benefit from treatments focused, respectively, on emotional dysregulation and interpersonal relations, whereas the multiple-problem group may need a sequenced treatment approach. Research is needed to test these hypotheses and to expand the method to include a wider range of pathological personality traits. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Personality Types and Personality Traits in DSM-5: Do They Really Match?

Abstract The alternative model of personality disorders introduced in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders provides a diagnostic system that is expected to correspond to the well-known categorical approach of personality disorder diagnoses. The current study aims to improve knowledge about the relationship between pathological personality traits and their corresponding personality types. A Brazilian sample of 1,162 people took part in this study. The results point to some level of continuity between the two models when the variables were treated as dimensional. Contrariwise, there is a lack of strong scientific evidence to justify the maintenance of the categorical approach. We recommend the exclusion of the categorical approach from personality disorder diagnosis systems.

A Brief but Comprehensive Review of Research on the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Both the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) and the chapter on personality disorders (PD) in the recent version of ICD-11 embody a shift from a categorical to a dimensional paradigm for the classification of PD. We describe these new models, summarize available measures, and provide a comprehensive review of research on the AMPD.

RECENT FINDINGS

A total of 237 publications on severity (criterion A) and maladaptive traits (criterion B) of the AMPD indicate (a) acceptable interrater reliability, (b) largely consistent latent structures, (c) substantial convergence with a range of theoretically and clinically relevant external measures, and (d) some evidence for incremental validity when controlling for categorical PD diagnoses. However, measures of criterion A and B are highly correlated, which poses conceptual challenges. The AMPD has stimulated extensive research with promising findings. We highlight open questions and provide recommendations for future research.

Comparability of self- and other-rated personality structure

It is commonly accepted that gathering information via multiple assessment methods (e.g., interview and questionnaire, self- and informant report) is important for establishing construct validity. Although numerous articles report convergent and discriminant agreement correlations between self- and other ratings of personality, studies of the structure of personality from such ratings are less common. The present study addresses this gap using a meta-analytic data set (N range = 157-9,295) of various versions (i.e., self- and other-report, full-length and short alternative format) of the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993; Clark, Simms, Wu, & Casillas, 2014). We hypothesized that (a) structures across all measure formats would be highly comparable and (b) to the extent that they were dissimilar, perspective (self vs. other) and measure format (long vs. short form), respectively, would influence comparability. Results revealed strong congruence among 3-factor structures (Negative Emotionality, Positive Emotionality, and Disinhibition vs. Constraint) across all versions of the SNAP, suggesting that personality as assessed by this broad measure of personality traits across the normal-abnormal spectrum has a robust structure across different rater perspectives and rating formats. Because the comparability analyses were highly congruent and differences among the comparisons were minimal, we concluded-contrary to our expectations-that different formats and different rater perspectives have little effect on structural comparability. Results generally support Funder's (1995) realistic accuracy model, suggesting that trait relevance, cue detection, and information usage are key factors in structuring informant ratings. Limitations of the present study and implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Three Approaches to Understanding and Classifying Mental Disorder: ICD-11, DSM-5, and the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)

The diagnosis of mental disorder initially appears relatively straightforward: Patients present with symptoms or visible signs of illness; health professionals make diagnoses based primarily on these symptoms and signs; and they prescribe medication, psychotherapy, or both, accordingly. However, despite a dramatic expansion of knowledge about mental disorders during the past half century, understanding of their components and processes remains rudimentary. We provide histories and descriptions of three systems with different purposes relevant to understanding and classifying mental disorder. Two major diagnostic manuals—the International Classification of Diseases and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—provide classification systems relevant to public health, clinical diagnosis, service provision, and specific research applications, the former internationally and the latter primarily for the United States. In contrast, the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria provides a framework that emphasizes integration of basic behavioral and neuroscience research to deepen the understanding of mental disorder. We identify four key issues that present challenges to understanding and classifying mental disorder: etiology, including the multiple causality of mental disorder; whether the relevant phenomena are discrete categories or dimensions; thresholds, which set the boundaries between disorder and nondisorder; and comorbidity, the fact that individuals with mental illness often meet diagnostic requirements for multiple conditions. We discuss how the three systems’ approaches to these key issues correspond or diverge as a result of their different histories, purposes, and constituencies. Although the systems have varying degrees of overlap and distinguishing features, they share the goal of reducing the burden of suffering due to mental disorder.

Continuity between DSM-5 Categorical Criteria and Traits Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder

OBJECTIVE

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) includes a heterogeneous constellation of symptoms operationalized with 9 categorical criteria. As the field of personality disorder (PD) research moves to emphasize dimensional traits in its operationalization, it is important to delineate continuity between the 9 DSM-IV/Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) categorical criteria for BPD and the trait dimensions in DSM-5 Section III. To date, no study has attempted such validation.

METHODS

We examined the associations between the 9 categorical DSM-IV/DSM-5 criteria for BPD and the trait dimensions of the alternative DSM-5 model for PDs in consecutively recruited psychiatric outpatients (N = 142; 68% female; age: mean 29.02, SD 8.38). This was investigated by means of bivariate correlations, followed by multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

The categorical BPD criteria were associated with conceptually related DSM-5 Section III traits (P > 0.001), except for the criterion of chronic feelings of emptiness. Consistent with the proposed traits criteria for BPD in DSM-5 Section III, we found Emotional lability, Anxiousness, Separation insecurity, Depressivity, Impulsivity, Risk taking, and Hostility to capture conceptually coherent BPD categorical criteria, while Suspiciousness was also strongly associated with BPD criteria. At the domain level, this applied to Negative affectivity, Disinhibition, and Psychoticism. Notably, Emotional lability, Impulsivity, and Suspiciousness emerged as unique predictors of BPD (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

In addition to the proposed BPD traits criteria, Suspiciousness and features of Psychoticism also augment BPD features. Provided that these findings are replicated in forthcoming research, a modified traits operationalization of BPD is warranted.

Utility of DSM-5 section III personality traits in differentiating borderline personality disorder from comparison groups

OBJECTIVE

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a highly prevalent diagnosis in mental health care and includes a heterogeneous constellation of symptoms. As the field of personality disorder (PD) research moves to emphasize dimensional traits in its operationalization, it is important to determine how the alternative DSM-5 Section III personality trait dimensions differentiates such features in BPD patients versus comparison groups. To date, no study has attempted such validation.

METHOD

The current study examined the utility of the DSM-5 trait dimensions in differentiating patients with the categorical DSM-IV/5 diagnosis of BPD (n=101) from systematically matched samples of other PD patients (n=101) and healthy controls (n=101). This was investigated using one-way ANOVA and multinomial logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS

Results indicated that Emotional Lability, Risk Taking, and Suspiciousness uniquely differentiated BPD patients from other PD patients, whereas Emotional Lability, Depressivity, and Suspiciousness uniquely differentiated BPD patients from healthy controls.

CONCLUSION

Emotional Lability is in particular a key BPD feature of the proposed Section III model, whereas Suspiciousness also augments essential BPD features. Provided that these findings are replicated cross-culturally in forthcoming research, a more parsimonious traits operationalization of BPD features is warranted.