title: Stability and Change in Personality Disorder Symptoms in 1-Year Follow-up of Depressed Adolescent Outpatients.
abstract: We investigated stability and change in personality disorder (PD) symptoms and whether depression severity, comorbid clinical psychiatric disorders, and social support predict changes in personality pathology among adolescent outpatients. The 1-year outcome of PD symptoms among consecutive adolescent psychiatric outpatients with depressive disorders (N = 189) was investigated with symptom count of depression, comorbid psychiatric disorders, and perceived social support as predictors. An overall decrease in PD symptoms in most PD categories was observed. Decreases in depression severity and in number of comorbid diagnoses correlated positively with decreases in PD symptoms of most PD categories. Social support from close friends predicted a decrease in schizotypal and narcissistic, whereas support from family predicted a decrease in paranoid symptoms. Our results suggest that among depressed adolescent outpatients, PD symptoms are relatively unstable, changes co-occuring with changes/improvement in overall psychopathology. Social support seems a possibly effective point for intervention efforts regarding positive outcome of PD symptoms.
authors.affiliation: *Mental Health Unit, Department of Health, National Institute for Health and Welfare; †Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki; ‡Department of Child Psychiatry, Turku University Central Hospital, Turku; and §Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Thea
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Strandholm
authors.forename: Olli
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kiviruusu
authors.forename: Linnea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Karlsson
authors.forename: Maiju
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pankakoski
authors.forename: Mirjami
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pelkonen
authors.forename: Mauri
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marttunen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015897:Comorbidity; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010045:Outpatients; D010260:Paranoid Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012944:Social Support; D055815:Young Adult