Measuring disordered personality functioning: to love and to work reprised.
OBJECTIVE
Current limitations to diagnosing and measuring the personality disorders encouraged a set of studies seeking to provide an alternate approach to modeling and measuring disordered personality function.


METHODS
A large set of self-reported descriptors of disordered personality function were factor analyzed in a sample of patients with clinician-diagnosed personality dysfunction, generating 11 lower-order and two higher-order constructs. Subjects and non-clinical controls also completed a measure of personality styles underpinning formalized personality disorder groupings. Properties of the refined self-report (SR) measure were assessed in an independent sample of patients with a clinically diagnosed personality disorder.


RESULTS
Limitations in 'cooperativeness' and 'coping' formed the higher-order constructs defining disordered personality function, with these constructs relevant to all personality styles. Analyses of SR, corroborative witness (CW) and clinician-rated data in an independent sample supported measuring disordered personality function by our derived 20-item SR measure, and exposed limitations to clinician-based assessment.


CONCLUSIONS
Study findings build to a multi-axial strategy for measuring personality disorder, involving separate dimensional assessment of both disordered personality function and of personality style.
Parker
G
G
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Mood Disorders Unit, Black Dog Institute, Syndey, Australia. g.parker@unsw.edu.au
Hadzi-Pavlovic
D
D
Both
L
L
Kumar
S
S
Wilhelm
K
K
Olley
A
A
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004651:Employment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires