Is social function a good proxy measure of personality disorder?
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Tyrer, Peter
Tyrer, Helen
Yang, Min
Crawford, Mike
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background:
Personality assessment is often difficult and proxy measures may be useful.
Aims: To examine the assessment of social functioning in relationship to personality disorder.
Method:
Secondary analysis of data from three clinical studies; following deliberate self-harm (n=460), cognitive behaviour therapy for health anxiety (n=444), and a 30-year follow up of 200 anxious/depressed patients. Social function and personality were assessed using the Social Functioning Questionnaire (SFQ) and the Personality Assessment Schedule. A five item short version of the SFQ, the Short Social Functioning Questionnaire (SSFQ) was also developed
Results:
The SFQ score in the first two studies (area under curve (AUC) 0.64 and 0.65) partly predicted personality status; in the third study this achieved close agreement (AUC SFQ 0.85 (95% CI 0.8-0.9; AUC SSFQ 0.84 (95% CI 0.78-0.89). In all studies social function deteriorated linearly with increasing personality pathology. Cut-off points of 4 on the SSFQ and 7 on the SFQ had high sensitivity (SSFQ 82-90%; SFQ 82-83%) and acceptable specificity (SSFQ 66-75%; SFQ 69-75%) in identifying personality disorder in the third study.
Conclusions: Social functioning recorded in either a 5-item or 8-item self-rating is a useful proxy measure of personality disturbance, and may be the core of disorder.
Personality assessment is often difficult and proxy measures may be useful.
Aims: To examine the assessment of social functioning in relationship to personality disorder.
Method:
Secondary analysis of data from three clinical studies; following deliberate self-harm (n=460), cognitive behaviour therapy for health anxiety (n=444), and a 30-year follow up of 200 anxious/depressed patients. Social function and personality were assessed using the Social Functioning Questionnaire (SFQ) and the Personality Assessment Schedule. A five item short version of the SFQ, the Short Social Functioning Questionnaire (SSFQ) was also developed
Results:
The SFQ score in the first two studies (area under curve (AUC) 0.64 and 0.65) partly predicted personality status; in the third study this achieved close agreement (AUC SFQ 0.85 (95% CI 0.8-0.9; AUC SSFQ 0.84 (95% CI 0.78-0.89). In all studies social function deteriorated linearly with increasing personality pathology. Cut-off points of 4 on the SSFQ and 7 on the SFQ had high sensitivity (SSFQ 82-90%; SFQ 82-83%) and acceptable specificity (SSFQ 66-75%; SFQ 69-75%) in identifying personality disorder in the third study.
Conclusions: Social functioning recorded in either a 5-item or 8-item self-rating is a useful proxy measure of personality disturbance, and may be the core of disorder.
Date Issued
2021-11
Date Acceptance
2021-04-23
Citation
Personality and Mental Health: multidisciplinary studies from personality dysfunction to criminal behaviour, 2021, 15 (4), pp.261-272
ISSN
1932-8621
Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Start Page
261
End Page
272
Journal / Book Title
Personality and Mental Health: multidisciplinary studies from personality dysfunction to criminal behaviour
Volume
15
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors Personality and Mental Health Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
Department of Health
Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
Identifier
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pmh.1513
Grant Number
07/01/26
N/A
Subjects
Science & Technology
Social Sciences
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Psychiatry
Psychology, Social
Psychology
COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY
DELIBERATE SELF-HARM
STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENT
PRELIMINARY VALIDATION
COST-EFFECTIVENESS
ADJUSTMENT
SCALE
PSYCHOEDUCATION
CLASSIFICATION
INTERVENTION
1103 Clinical Sciences
1117 Public Health and Health Services
1701 Psychology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-05-17