Sa. Ball et al., Reliability of personality disorder symptoms and personality traits in substance-dependent inpatients, J ABN PSYCH, 110(2), 2001, pp. 341-352
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.