STABILITY OF THE SEVERE PERSONALITY-DISORDER DIAGNOSIS - A 2-YEAR TO 5-YEAR PROSPECTIVE-STUDY

To study the diagnostic stability of severe personality disorder (PD) diagnoses (Cluster A and/ or B) over time and using a European sample, 73 day patients were followed over a period of mean 2.8 years and red iagnosed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. Among the severe PD patients (n = 37), only 4 (11%) were clearly witho ut severe personality problems at follow-up, although 11 (30%) had the ir severe PD diagnosis removed as a result of the follow-up interview. Only 5% of the patients initially with no PD or a Cluster C disorder were given a severe PD diagnosis at follow-up. The findings validate t he concept of severe PD diagnoses being related to long-standing dysfu nctional traits and behavior. The question should also be raised wheth er the diagnostic stability in previous studies has been underestimate d due to reliability problems.