PERSONALITY-DISORDER SYMPTOMATOLOGY ASSOCIATED WITH ADOLESCENT DEPRESSION AND SUBSTANCE-ABUSE

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which adolescent-de pression and substance abuse are associated with personality disorder symptomatology. The Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised (PDQ- R), the Revised Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R), and a standard r etrospective substance use diary were administered to 441 undergraduat e students, 166 of whom completed the substance use diary at baseline, with readministrations 1 and 2 months later, Results indicated that: (1) Depressed adolescents reported significantly greater symptomatolog y on the PDS-R antisocial, avoidant, borderline, paranoid, passive-agg ressive, schizotypal, and composite scales than did nondepressed adole scents, even after global psychiatric symptomatology was controlled st atistically, (2) Heavy users of alcohol, marijuana, and/or tobacco rep orted significantly greater symptomatology on the PDQ-R antisocial, bo rderline, and composite scales than did adolescents in a comparison gr oup, after global psychiatric symptomatology was controlled statistica lly. (3) Adolescents diagnosed with personality disorders were 10 time s as likely as those without personality disorders to be identified as depressed cases and were more than twice as likely as those without p ersonality disorders to be heavy users of alcohol, marijuana, and/or t obacco.