RELIABILITY OF SELF-REPORTED ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY-DISORDER SYMPTOMSAMONG SUBSTANCE-ABUSERS

It is estimated that from 20 to 60% of substance abusers meet criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD). An accurate and reliable d iagnosis is important because persons meeting criteria for APD, by the nature of their disorder, are less likely to change behaviors and mor e likely to relapse to both substance abuse and high risk behaviors. T o understand more about the reliability of the disorder and symptoms o f APD, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule Version III-R (DIS) was admin istered to 453 substance abusers ascertained from treatment programs a nd from the general population (St Louis Epidemiological Catchment Are a (EGA) follow-up study). Estimates of the I week, test-retest reliabi lity for the childhood conduct disorder criterion, the adult antisocia l behavior criterion, and APD diagnosis fell in the good agreement ran ge, as measured by kappa. The internal consistency of these DIS sympto ms was adequate to acceptable. Individual DIS criteria designed to mea sure childhood conduct disorder ranged from fair to good for most item s; reliability was slightly higher for the adult antisocial behavior s ymptom items. Finally, self-reported 'liars' were no more unreliable i n their reports of their behaviors than 'non-liars'. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.