CONCORDANCE BETWEEN PATIENTS AND INFORMANTS ON THE PERSONALITY-DISORDER EXAMINATION

Objective: Difficulties in the assessment of personality disorders and the burgeoning interest in axis II have led to increased use of infor mants when studying these conditions. The present study sought to eval uate the correspondence between patients and their informants on sympt oms of personality disorders. Method: A total of 105 outpatients and k nowledgeable informants were independently interviewed by using the Pe rsonality Disorder Examination, a widely used instrument for the full range of personality disorders. Results: Diagnostic concordance betwee n interviews was low (median kappa=-0.01), while correlations between dimensional scores were somewhat higher (median kappa=0.36). Overall, patient interviews showed more pathology than interviews with informan ts. However, many of the symptoms obtained from informants were not re ported by patients. Conclusions: These data suggest that patient-infor mant concordance for axis II disorders is poor for diagnoses but somew hat better for dimensional scores. There was no evidence that low agre ement can be explained by patients attempting to present themselves in a favorable light. Further work is necessary to elucidate the reasons for discordance and determine which data source provides the most val id information.