Depression and Axis II symptomatology in an adolescent community sample: Concurrent and longitudinal associations

The relationship between personality pathology and depression has been the focus of increasing attention, but few investiga tors have examined this is sue prospectively or in adolescent community samples. The present study use d both self report and interviewer assessments of personality disorder symp tomatology and depression in a sample of 155 late adolescent women followed over three years. Personality pathology cluster and total scores demonstra ted moderate to fairly high degrees of stability, indicating endurance of t hese traits in late adolescence, As predicted, Axis II symptoms were associ ated with concurrent depressive symptomatology, Overall, self-reported pers onality disorder symptoms, as well as those specifically in Clusters A and B, predicted interviewer-rated depression over two years beyond the contrib ution of initial depression, indicating that subclinical Axis II symptoms a re a risk factor for subsequent depressive symptomatology.