Reliability of personality disorder symptoms and personality traits in substance-dependent inpatients

The authors compared the internal consistency, 1-year temporal stability, a nd self-informant agreement of ratings of personality trait (NEO Five-Facto r Inventory; NEO-FFI; P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and personality dis order symptom severity (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Persona lity Disorders Questionnaire; SCID-II-Q; R. L. Spitzer, J. & W. Williams, M . Gibbon, & M. First, 1990) in 131 substance-dependent inpatients, Internal consistency coefficients were acceptable to very good for most NEO-FFI and SCID-II-Q scales, and temporal stability correlations were significant for all measures. Agreement between patient and informant ratings was more mod est. Substance abuse and depression symptom severity moderated the temporal stability and self-informant agreement of several personality trait and di sorder ratings. The authors did not find that the five factors were more re liable than the Axis II symptoms. Issues related to the reliability of pers onality assessment in multiply diagnosed patients are discussed.