title: Comparison of assessment of personality disorder by patients and informants.
abstract: The present study evaluated the pathology of personality disorder in a group of 8 nonpatient volunteers and 32 psychiatric in- and outpatients, most of them suffering from substance abuse disorder. The patient self-reports were compared with the reports by 2 informants for each proband. All probands and informants completed the Structured Interview for DSM-III-R Axis II Personality Questionnaire. Patient self-reports and informant reports yielded the same number of diagnoses. The diagnostic agreement between the three sets of data was generally poor; however, the concordance was slightly better between both groups of informants than between patients and informants: Median kappa were 0.13 for patients versus parents, 0.14 for patients versus brothers/sisters and 0.29 for parents versus brothers/sisters. Patient and informant evaluations represent two different assessment approaches of the personality, and a complete agreement is not to be expected.
authors.affiliation: Psychiatric University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland. modestin@bli.unizh.ch
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Modestin
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Puhan
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012647:Self-Assessment