Personality disorders and semantic trait summary

When inquired about our personality characteristics, it has been demonstrated that we apply to the trait summary provided by our semantic memory system. Hense, semantic self-knowledge constitutes the basis of our sense of identity. DSM-5 alternative model for personality disorders (PD)propose an association between the extent of personality pathology and the extent of impairment identity definition, an aspect of self-functioning. The present study aims to investigate in a group of psychiatric patients the relationship of the severity of personality pathology with the accuracy (validity) and reliability of personality trait summary The naturalistic sample of the study consisted of 75 psychiatric in- and out-patients under treatment at the Department of Psychiatry, Adnan Menderes University Health Sciences Center. Each patient was clinically assessed with respect to DSM-III-R, DSM-IV/5, ICD-10 and DSM-5 alternative model PD criteria sets utilizing the SCID-II semi-structured interview and the Level of Personality Functioning (LPF) Scale. In addition, the patients self-rated their personality characteristics on a trait list consisted of 60 items once or twice. The same list was administered one first degree relative of each patient to rate the items considering the respective patent's personality traits. Twenty nine of our participants complied with our request to rate the trait list twice with at least one-month interwal between the two occasions. When analysing the collected data, accuracy or validity of each patient's trait self-knowledge was gauged with the correlations (Pearson's r) and deviations (sum of squared deviations) between the patient's trait self-ratings and his/her relative's ratings. Likewise, reliability of each patient's trait self-knowledge was gauged by means of the correlations and deviations between the patient's trait self-ratings on two occasions. Each patient was assigned PD diagnosis according to DSM-III, DSM-IV/5, ICD-10 ve DSM-5-AM(Alternative Model) criteria sets independently. Kappa statistic was employed to investigate the agreement levels beyond chance among the categorical PD diagnoses in accordance with the four different criteria sets. The validity and reliability of the trait self-knowledge was computed for the group of patients with and without DSM-5 PD diagnosis separately; and between group comparisons were conducted by means of one-way ANOVA. Also, a separate multiple regression analysis was conducted hierarchically for each validity and reliability gauges to investigate the extent of prediction of each gauge by the LPF scale scores and SCID-II total scores. Diagnostic assessments in accordance with the DSM-5 general PD criteria resulted in 52% of the participating patients being diagnosed with PD. Kappa statistics indicated that the amount of agreement in excess of chance washigh for DSM-5 versus ICD-10 diagnoses (κ = .84) and for DSM-5 versus DSM-5-AM diagnoses (κ = .84); but fair for DSM-5 and DSM-III-R diagnoses (κ = .47). Mean correlation coefficient as a gauge of the validity of self-knowledge was computed as r = 0.41 for the patients with PD, and r = 0.53 for patients without. Variance analyses indicated that presence or absence of PD exerts a significant and medium to large effect on the validity of self-knowledge as gauged with correlation coefficients (F1, 73 = 4.52, p <.05, η2 = .06), and with sum of squares of the deviation scores (F1, 73 = 12.83, p = .001, η2 = .15). A series of regression analyses revealed that all the validity and reliability gauges coulkd be predicted by the LPF scale scores (R2s ranging between .05 and .09). These small predictive effects were associated with statistical significance for the validity gauges involving data from 75 pair of LPF ratings by patients and relatives, but not for the reliability gauges involving data from 29 pairs of LPF ratings by patients on two occasions. In contrast to the LPF scale scores, SCID-II total scores showed no predictive effect on the validity and reliability gauges. Findings from this study conducted with psychiatric patients with a variety of neurotic complaints suggest that PD diagnosis and impaired personality functioning are associated with lower accuracy and reliability of the trait self-knowledge. Further research in this field are warranted to replicate the statistical relationhip observed in present study, to illuminate its clinical significance and its implications to psychotherapy with personality disordered patients.