STUDY ON THE TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION O F THE PERSONALITY DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONNAIRE-REVISED (PDQ-R)

The Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-revised (PDQ-R) is a unique i nstrument which assesses the presence of DSM-III-R personality disorde rs through a self report format. In spite of the limitations detected in the English version of the instrument, it has a wide distribution i n psychiatric literature, because of its easy and economic application . The aim of this study is to translate into Spanish and validate the PDQ-R with the reference of a structured clinical interview for person ality disorders. Methods. Thirty subjects with a clinical diagnosis of personality disorders were recruited from the external and hospitaliz ation services of the Mexican Institute of Psychiatry. The personality disorder diagnosis was confirmed through Spitzer's structured clinica l diagnostic interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-II). Healthy controls (30) were recruited from a community sample which also received the SCID-II to assess the presence of personality disorders. All cases and contro ls completed the PDQ-R format. Results. An overall diagnostic sensitiv ity and specificity of 90 % was found for the diagnosis of at least 1 personality disorder with a cut-off point of 55 points of the PDQ-R. T he instrument showed an adequate diagnostic validity for cluster C and cluster B personality diagnosis and poor validity for cluster C. In g eneral, and congruent with the English version, the PDQ-R showed gener ally acceptable values of negative predictive value (0.76 to 1.00) and generally poor positive predictive values (0.05 to 0.72). Conclusion. The Spanish version of the PDQ-R behaves similarly to the English ver sion, with a differential validity between personality cluster and goo d negative predictive values. The instrument may be used for research in Spanish-speaking populations, as long as its limitations are accoun ted for in future research designs.