Gender bias in self-report personality disorder inventories

There has been considerable controversy and research regarding gender biase s in the diagnosis of personality disorders, but few studies have explored whether personality disorder self-report inventories might contain gender b iases. The current study investigated whether items from three commonly use d inventories evidenced a potential for gender bias. Subjects were from out patient mental health clinics. Items were considered gender biased if they exhibited gender differences and failed to correlate with or, more importan tly, correlated negatively with dysfunction. Thirty-eight items evidenced p otential bias, the majority of which were from Narcissistic scales. The imp lications of the results for the clinical assessment of purportedly maladap tive personality traits and for the construction of personality disorder sc ales are discussed.