AVOIDANT PERSONALITY-DISORDER AS A PREDICTOR FOR TREATMENT OUTCOME AMONG GENERALIZED SOCIAL PHOBICS

The effect of comorbid avoidant personalty disorder (APD) on response to exposure-based treatment for social phobia was examined in a sample of 48 outpatients with generalized social phobia. Diagnoses were base d on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. At pretest; clie nts with APD were more severely impaired on all self-report measures a nd had a higher frequency of comorbid diagnoses than those without the disorder. Although clients with APD improved significantly with treat ment, they continued to report more severe impairment on all outcome m easures at posttest and 3-month follow-up as compared to those without APD. Depression may in part explain the poorer rate of improvement du ring treatment of those with APD.