Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “PERSONALITY”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,261 records · Page 70Linked to original sources
PubMed1997

Attentional functioning in schizotypal personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has shown biological, phenomenological, and cognitive similarities between schizophrenic patients and individuals with schizophrenia-related personality disorders and features. Evidence further suggests that of these common dysfunctions, abnormal attention is one of the most promising indicators of a biological susceptibility to schizophrenia-related disorders. Although attentional dysfunctions have been reliably detected in schizophrenic patients as well as in a variety of populations at risk for schizophrenia, few studies have investigated attention in clinical patients with schizotypal personality disorder. In this study, the extent of attentional impairment was assessed in subjects with schizotypal personality disorder, normal comparison subjects, patients with other personality disorders, and schizophrenic patients. METHOD: Thirty subjects with schizotypal personality disorder, 35 subjects with other personality disorders (i.e., clinic patients with non-odd cluster personality disorders), 36 subjects with schizophrenia, and 20 comparison subjects who did not meet criteria for any axis I or axis II disorder participated in this study. All subjects were diagnosed according to DSM-III criteria. Attention was assessed by using the Continuous Performance Test, Identical Pairs Version. RESULTS: Analyses indicated that subjects with schizotypal personality disorder, like schizophrenic subjects, performed significantly worse than comparison subjects on both the verbal and spatial tasks of the Continuous Performance Test, Identical Pairs Version. In contrast, patients with other personality disorders performed similarly to comparison subjects across conditions. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that patients with schizotypal personality disorder are impaired in their attentional functioning relative to normal comparison subjects and that they display deficits that are similar to the pattern characterizing schizophrenic patients.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Diagnostic efficiency of borderline personality disorder criteria in hospitalized adolescents: comparison with hospitalized adults.

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined the diagnostic efficiency of borderline personality disorder criteria in adolescent inpatients. For comparison, diagnostic efficiency of borderline personality disorder criteria was also examined in a group of concurrently recruited adult inpatients. METHOD: Adolescents (N=123) and adults (N=106) were reliably assessed with the Personality Disorder Examination, a semistructured diagnostic interview for DSM-III-R personality disorders. Sixty-five adolescents and 50 adults met diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder. Conditional probabilities were calculated to determine which borderline personality disorder criteria were most efficient as inclusion criteria and as exclusion criteria. Adolescents and adults were analyzed separately, and the results were compared. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between groups with regard to the base rates of the borderline personality disorder diagnosis nor for any borderline personality disorder criterion. The best inclusion criterion for the adolescents was abandonment fears, though for the adults all symptoms were approximately equivalent in this regard. The most efficient exclusion criterion was uncontrolled anger for the adolescents and impulsiveness for the adults. CONCLUSIONS: In hospitalized patients, borderline personality disorder and its symptoms appear to be as frequent for adolescents as for adults. Despite these surface similarities between groups with respect to symptom patterns, several differences were found at the level of the diagnostic efficiency for individual borderline personality disorder criteria. These differences may shed light on the nature of borderline psychopathology during adolescence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Family functioning and peer affiliation in children of fathers with antisocial personality disorder and substance dependence: associations with problem behaviors.

OBJECTIVE: Family functioning and peer influences are theoretically linked to child psychopathology. This study quantified the functional status of families with fathers with substance dependence with or without comorbid antisocial personality disorder and evaluated the peer environments of preadolescent offspring. The authors examined associations between the child's psychopathology, paternal substance dependence/antisocial personality disorder status, and measures of family and peer environments. METHOD: Families with the presence or absence of paternal substance dependence were subdivided into those with and without paternal antisocial personality disorder. Grouped families were contrasted on measures of family functioning, the child's peer affiliation, and the child's problem behaviors. Regression analysis determined the influence of these factors on the child's psychopathology. RESULTS: Families with paternal substance dependence functioned worse than normal comparison families. However, families with paternal substance dependence and antisocial personality disorder (N=34) did not differ markedly from those with substance dependence without antisocial personality disorder (N=84). The children of fathers with both substance dependence and antisocial personality disorder had greater affiliation with deviant peers than those with substance dependence without antisocial personality disorder and comparison families (N=104). CONCLUSIONS: Children of fathers with substance dependence and antisocial personality disorder demonstrated higher externalizing and internalizing psychopathology than those with substance dependence but not antisocial personality disorder and those without either condition. Paternal substance dependence/antisocial personality disorder status and the child's affiliation with deviant peers were most robustly associated with the child's psychopathology. Research is needed to develop interventions that effectively address parental risk and healthy peer relations.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed2004

Refining personality disorder diagnosis: integrating science and practice.

OBJECTIVE: Personality disorder researchers are currently evaluating a range of potential solutions to problems with the DSM-IV diagnostic categories. This article proposes changes to the diagnostic categories and criteria based on empirical findings from a national sample of patients with personality disorder diagnoses. METHOD: The Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200) is a personality assessment tool designed to capture the richness and complexity of clinical personality descriptions while providing reliable and quantifiable data. A national sample of experienced psychiatrists and psychologists used the SWAP-200 to describe either their conceptions (prototypes) of personality disorders (N=267) or current patients with personality disorder diagnoses (N=530). RESULTS: Clinicians" conceptions of personality disorders and their descriptions of actual patients overlapped with the DSM descriptions but also differed in systematic ways. Their descriptions were clinically richer than the DSM descriptions and placed greater emphasis on patients" mental life or inner experience. The study identifies potential diagnostic criteria that may be more defining of personality syndromes than some of the current DSM criteria. CONCLUSIONS: Diagnostic criterion sets should be expanded to better address the multiple domains of functioning inherent in the concept of personality and should more explicitly address patients' mental life or inner experience. The authors offer recommendations for revision of the diagnostic categories and criteria and also propose a prototype matching approach to personality disorder diagnosis that may overcome limitations inherent in the current diagnostic system.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disord↗
PubMed2005

Neuropsychological performance in schizotypal personality disorder: importance of working memory.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive deficits consistently have been reported in schizophrenia patients and in patients with schizotypal personality disorder. For this study, the authors wanted to identify which of the domains of cognitive impairment represent "core" deficits of schizophrenia, comparing subjects with schizotypal personality disorder to two comparison groups: healthy volunteers and patients with personality disorders unrelated to schizophrenia. METHOD: Three groups completed a neuropsychological battery: patients with DSM-III-R schizotypal personality disorder (N=82); patients with DSM-III-R personality disorders unrelated to schizophrenia (i.e., a personality disorder other than schizotypal, schizoid, or paranoid [N=44]); and healthy volunteers (N=63). The battery included the California Verbal Learning Test, Trailmaking Test parts A and B, the Dot test of working memory, the Stroop Color and Word Test, the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, the WMS visual reproduction test, and the WAIS-R vocabulary and block design. RESULTS: Normative standards for performance that controlled for age, gender, and education were created from the scores of the healthy volunteers. Overall, schizotypal personality disorder patients performed significantly worse than the healthy volunteers and those with personality disorders unrelated to schizophrenia. Specifically, patients with schizotypal personality disorder demonstrated impaired performance on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, WMS visual reproduction test, Dot test, and California Verbal Learning Test. In addition, in a regression analysis, performance on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test demonstrated the largest effect size. Indeed, it accounted for unique variance above and beyond all other cognitive measures, since controlling for Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test performance abolished group differences across all other measures. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with schizotypal personality disorder demonstrated moderate cognitive impairment compared with healthy volunteers (significant for seven out of 11 measures). These differences reached statistical significance for tasks of working memory, episodic memory, and delayed recall. Working memory performance accounted for the group differences. This study supports the view that working memory represents a core deficit of schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Personality disorder in the elderly.

Psychiatrists tend not to ascribe personality disorder to elderly patients who present with psychiatric or medical illness, perhaps because of the difficulty of defining personality disorder in older persons or because of the belief that it does not exist among the elderly. Based on a review of the literature, the author concludes that personality and personality disorder are most reliably described in behavioral terms and that normal aging can change preexisting behaviors and produce new behaviors. However, personality remains relatively stable as people age, and healthy personality traits are as durable as pathological personality traits. Finally, he concludes that the elderly are not immune from personality disorder but that age-related behavioral changes may mask the presence of the disorder. Therefore, diagnostic guidelines for personality disorder should include age-associated criteria.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Social function in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder: associations with personality, symptoms and neurocognition.

BACKGROUND: Research has indicated that stable individual differences in personality exist among persons with schizophrenia spectrum disorders predating illness onset that are linked to symptoms and self appraised quality of life. Less is known about how closely individual differences in personality are uniquely related to levels of social relationships, a domain of dysfunction in schizophrenia more often linked in the literature with symptoms and neurocognitive deficits. This study tested the hypothesis that trait levels of personality as defined using the five-factor model of personality would be linked to social function in schizophrenia. METHODS: A self-report measure of the five factor model of personality was gathered along with ratings of social function, symptoms and assessments of neurocognition for 65 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. RESULTS: Univariate correlations and stepwise multiple regression indicated that frequency of social interaction was predicted by higher levels of the trait of Agreeableness, fewer negative symptoms, better verbal memory and at the trend level, lesser Neuroticism (R2 =.42, p <.0001). In contrast, capacity for intimacy was predicted by fewer negative symptoms, higher levels of Agreeableness, Openness, and Conscientiousness and at the trend level, fewer positive symptoms (R2 =.67, p <.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, the findings of this study suggest that person-centered variables such as personality, may account for some of the broad differences seen in outcome in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including social outcomes. One interpretation of the results of this study is that differences in personality combine with symptoms and neurocognitive deficits to affect how persons with schizophrenia are able to form and sustain social connections with others.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

The narcissistic personality disorder and the differential diagnosis of antisocial behavior.

This article describes a dimension of antisocial behavior that links the narcissistic personality disorder with the antisocial personality disorder, with the syndrome of malignant narcissism as intermediate between the two. Starting with a critique of the DSM-III-R description of the antisocial personality disorder, the author reviews some salient contributions to the concept of the antisocial personality disorder derived from descriptive, sociologic, and psychoanalytic viewpoints. Cleckley's classic description forms the historical background for an updated description of the key characteristics of the antisocial personality disorder. What follows is a summary of the differential diagnosis of antisocial behavior as found in the antisocial personality disorder, the syndrome of malignant narcissism, the narcissistic personality disorders with antisocial behaviors, other severe personality disorders with antisocial features, neurotic personality disorders with antisocial features, symptomatic neuroses, and, finally, dissocial reactions. Prognostic and therapeutic considerations regarding the treatment of antisocial behavior are briefly summarized in the light of this differential diagnosis. A final section describes the psychodynamics of the syndrome of malignant narcissism and of the antisocial personality disorder.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1993

Pharmacotherapy of personality disorders: conceptual framework and clinical strategies.

This article delineates the conceptual models used when medications are prescribed for patients with personality disorders and reviews the data on the efficacy of these medications. Studies before 1980 are difficult to interpret because of changes in diagnostic criteria. Nonetheless, early studies on non-DSM-III disorders such as pseudoneurotic schizophrenia, emotionally unstable character disorder, hysteroid dysphoria, and subaffective disorders indicated the potential utility of pharmacotherapy for treating personality disorders. Models to consider in evaluating the possible use of medications for treating personality disorders are: (1) treating the disorder itself; (2) treating symptom clusters within and across disorders; and (3) treating associated axis I disorders. Among the current personality disorders, borderline personality disorder has been the most extensively studied, with antipsychotic agents being the most well-documented treatment. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, fluoxetine, and carbamazepine show promise. Schizotypal disorders may respond to low-dose antipsychotic drugs. Although heuristically valuable, the symptom cluster approach to treatment has not yet been validated. Axis I disorders, especially depression, are frequently associated with all personality disorders. Dependent personality disorder is linked to panic disorder with agoraphobia, whereas avoidant personality disorder is associated with social phobia and panic. In general, pharmacotherapy for axis I disorders is less effective in the presence of a comorbid personality disorder. Despite the modest benefits seen in many studies, pharmacotherapy can add significantly to the overall treatment of those with personality disorders. Future research must carefully assess the effect of comorbid axis I disorders on responses. The symptom cluster/psychobiologic dimension approach should be investigated in clinical studies.

Humans↗
PubMed1998

Personality and psychopathology in late life.

Personality structure, defined as an enduring, consistent, and unique set of behavioral traits that differentiates one individual from another, forms the foundation of a person's response to both normal and pathologic aging. Although normal aging of the brain may not greatly influence personality, brain injury and disease often lead to personality change. Overall personality traits have been found to be stable within cohorts over time, although with several discrete changes. An older individual's responses to age-related stress will depend on the balance of personality strengths and weaknesses. Severe or multiple stresses in late life may overwhelm an individual's coping skills and lead to personality change. Personality disorders, defined as enduring and pervasive patterns of maladaptive behaviors, are challenging to diagnose in late life and have a variable course depending on the type of personality disorder or disorders. More research is needed to improve diagnosis and better understand the manifestations of late-life personality disorders.

Aging↗
PubMed2000

Personality in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Our aim was to study the presence of personality traits and disorder in adolescents with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Personality was then compared to other measures of functioning such as presence of psychiatric disorder and rating on the Child Behavior Checklist 4-18 (CBCL) and in relation to CFS outcome. Twenty-five adolescents with CFS followed-up after contacts with tertiary paediatric/psychiatric clinics were compared with 15 matched healthy controls. Interviews and questionnaires from parents and youngsters included Personality Assessment Schedule (PAS), Kiddie-SADS Psychiatric Interview, Child Behavior Checklist. CFS subjects were significantly more likely than controls to have personality difficulty or disorder. Personality features significantly more common amongst them were conscientiousness, vulnerability, worthlessness and emotional lability. There was a nonsignificant association between personality disorder and worse CFS outcome. Personality difficulty or disorder was significantly associated with psychological symptoms and decreased social competence on the CBCL but it was distinguishable from episodic psychiatric disorder. Personality difficulty and disorder are increased in adolescents with a history of CFS. Personality disorder may be linked to poor CFS outcome.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Associations between plasma glucose and DSM-III-R cluster B personality traits in psychiatric outpatients.

Associations between personality traits, measured with the Karolinska Scales of Personality, the Impulsiveness subscale from the Impulsiveness, Venturesomeness and Empathy (IVE) Inventory, and with self-assessed personality traits and disorders (SCID-II Screen Questionnaire), and plasma insulin, glucagon and glucose, respectively, were explored in a sample of 101 psychiatric outpatients of both sexes. No relationships between the peptide hormones and personality measures were found. However, fasting glucose values, which were all essentially within the normal biological variation, were significantly related to several personality measures. For males, a low blood glucose was associated with low stable general level of functioning, with high IVE Impulsiveness, and with self-assessed histrionic and narcissistic traits. High number of self-assessed personality traits for all cluster B personality disorders was strongly associated with high IVE Impulsiveness. The results of the present study support the generalizability of earlier findings from alcoholic impulsive offenders: in males, low blood glucose is associated with an extrovert and impulsive, acting-out behavior that includes the breaking of societal norms and rules. In contrast, for females a positive relationship between fasting glucose and self-assessed histrionic personality traits was found. Because no association between global level of functioning and glucose was found in women, these personality traits may not necessarily be maladaptive, as was the case for males.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Psychiatric illnesses in families of subjects with schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders: high morbidity risks for unspecified functional psychoses and schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: The authors determined morbidity risks for psychiatric illnesses in the families of probands with schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders. METHOD: Subjects were recruited from the community through newspaper advertisements. Subjects were identified as having schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders (N = 30) if they met at least three, four, or three DSM-III-R criteria for schizoid (N = 14), schizotypal (N = 20), and/or paranoid (N = 15) personality disorder, respectively. The comparison subjects had no psychiatric diagnoses (N = 8) or had other personality disorders (N = 12); none of the subjects in either group had any DSM-III-R axis I diagnosis. Trained interviewers collected family history information about the relatives of the two groups; the interviewers were blind to the probands' diagnoses. RESULTS: The risks for schizophrenia, other functional psychoses, and schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders were significantly higher in the relatives of subjects with schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders than in the families of the comparison subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The high rate of schizophrenia in the families of probands with schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders is consistent with the previous findings of higher than normal rates of these personality disorders in the biological relatives of schizophrenic patients. The significance of the high rate of unspecified functional psychoses is unclear. Use of the family study method, by which valid differential diagnosis of psychoses is possible, is indicated. The results from the current study do not rule out the possibility that the schizophrenia-spectrum personality disorders are related to psychoses in general rather than specifically to schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Short-term diagnostic stability of schizotypal, borderline, avoidant, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Personality disorders are defined as enduring patterns of maladaptive behaviors and traits that are stable over time. This study prospectively examined the stability of four personality disorders (schizotypal, borderline, avoidant, and obsessive-compulsive) over a 1-year follow-up period. METHOD: Subjects (N=668) were recruited from multiple clinical settings at four collaborating institutions. Subjects met criteria for one or more of the four personality disorders or were part of a comparison group of subjects with major depressive disorder and no personality disorder. Diagnoses were established by using semistructured interviews. Follow-up assessments, conducted 6 and 12 months after the baseline assessment, included monthly ratings of all criteria for the four personality disorders and weekly ratings of the course of major depressive disorder. The current report is based on 621 subjects with complete data through 12 months of the follow-up period. RESULTS: Significantly more subjects in each personality disorder group remained at diagnostic threshold throughout the 12 months of the follow-up period than did those in the major depressive disorder group. A continuous measure of number of criteria met was highly correlated across the three assessments. The majority of personality disorder subjects, however, did not consistently remain at diagnostic threshold, and the mean number of criteria met decreased significantly for each group. CONCLUSIONS: Individual differences in personality disorder features appear to be highly stable, although the number of criteria present decreases over time. Personality disorders may be characterized by stable trait constellations that fluctuate in degree of maladaptive expression.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Premorbid personality and behavioral symptoms in Alzheimer disease. Some cautions.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the extent to which the previously reported relationship between premorbid personality and psychopathological symptoms after the onset of Alzheimer disease (AD) is due to the use of a single informant for both personality and symptom information. DESIGN: Premorbid personality descriptions of patients with AD were obtained from 2 sources, primary caregivers and secondary informants, using the Personality Assessment Schedule and NEO-PI-R Neuroticism Scale, respectively. All information regarding depression and anxiety since the onset of AD was obtained from primary caregivers using clinical interviews and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia. RESULTS: When data were obtained from the same informant, significant relationships were found between premorbid personality and both presence of depression and the severity of anxiety symptoms. When data were obtained from 2 different informants, the only significant relationship was between premorbid neuroticism and anxiety severity. CONCLUSION: As in a previous report, there was a relationship between premorbid personality and depressive symptoms in AD, but only when personality and symptom information was obtained from the same informant. On the other hand, there was a relationship between premorbid personality and severity of anxiety symptoms both when personality and symptom information came from different informants as well as from the same informant. These data suggest that retrospective bias contributes to the apparent consistency between premorbid personality and some aspects of psychiatric symptoms in AD, specifically depression.

Aged↗
PubMed1982

EEG studies of two multiple personalities and a control.

There are few reports of EEG findings in patients with multiple personalities. In our study, EEGs were visually scanned and frequency analyzed in two patients with multiple personalities and one control. Auditory and visual evoked responses were also obtained from one of the patients and the control. The visually scanned EEGs and the evoked responses demonstrated few differences among the various personalities in each patient, whereas the frequency analysis showed the greatest number of significant differences among the "personalities" in the control. These data suggest that EEG differences among personalities in a person with multiple personalities involve intensity of concentration, mood changes, degree of muscle tension, and duration of recording, rather than some inherent difference between the brains of persons with multiple personalities and those of normal persons.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Personality disorders among subjects recovered from eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Personality disorders are common in symptomatic eating disorders subjects. Because personality symptoms could be exaggerated by malnutrition or Axis I disorders, we studied women who had recovered from eating disorders for at least 1 year to see if personality disorder symptoms persisted in the well state. METHOD: Personality disorders were evaluated in 10 women recovered from anorexia nervosa (AN), 28 women recovered from bulimia nervosa (BN), and 16 women recovered from AN and BN, using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R personality disorders. RESULTS: Fourteen of 54 subjects (26%) met the criteria for at least one personality disorder, such as self-defeating, obsessive-compulsive, or borderline personality disorder. Cluster B personality disorders were closely associated with bulimic subtypes. CONCLUSIONS: While a recovery from eating disorders may have an attenuating influence on the symptoms of personality disorders, such personality disorder diagnoses persist after recovery in some recovered subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The five-factor model and personality disorder empirical literature: A meta-analytic review.

The current meta-analysis reviews research examining the relationships between each of the five-factor model personality dimensions and each of the 10 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) personality disorder diagnostic categories. Effect sizes representing the relationships between these two constructs were compiled from 15 independent samples. Results were analyzed both within each individual personality disorder category and across personality disorders, indicating how personality disorders are different and similar, respectively, with regard to underlying personality traits. In terms of how personality disorders differ, the results showed that each disorder displays a five-factor model profile that is meaningful and predictable given its unique diagnostic criteria. With regard to their similarities, the findings revealed that the most prominent and consistent personality dimensions underlying a large number of the personality disorders are positive associations with Neuroticism and negative associations with Agreeableness. Extraversion appears to be a more discriminating dimension, as indicated by prominent but directionally variable associations with the personality disorders. The implications of these meta-analytic findings for clinical application and the advancement of future research are discussed.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disord↗