Rates of personality disorders in substance abusers: A comparison between DSM-III-R and DSM-IV

The publication of the DSM-TV represents the first revision in 7 years to t he DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria, The purpose of the current study is to ev aluate the impact of changes to the Axis II criteria on diagnostic rates in a substance abusing population. We interviewed 370 patients entering treat ment using a modified version of the SCID-II, which allowed for the diagnos is of both DSM-III-R and DSM-nr Arris II diagnoses, Prevalence rates for ea ch Arris II disorder are given, as well as kappa statistics showing diagnos tic agreement between the two systems. The results of this study indicate g ood rates of diagnostic agreement between the two systems with a few notabl e exceptions, Poor rates of diagnostic agreement were obtained for the hist rionic and dependent diagnostic categories, No single diagnostic change app ears to be responsible for the prevalence rate differences between the two systems.