Entwicklung eines Screening-Verfahrens zur Diagnostik von Persönlichkeitsstörungen: Das Persönlichkeitsstörungs- Screening - Kurzform (PSS-K)

Abstract

Background: The assessment of personality disorders should be routine in psychotherapeutic treatment settings. This report describes a new screening measure which could be used as a screening tool in the first step of a 2-stage diagnostic process for personality disorders: the Personality Disorder Screening - Short Version (PSS-K). Patients and Method: To validate the instrument, a non-clinical sample (n = 392), prisoners (n = 48) and 3 clinical samples, i.e., patients with substance abuse (n = 90), psychotherapeutic outpatients (n = 43) and psychiatric inpatients (n = 52), were recruited. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SCID-II) was used as the gold standard. Results: The PSS-K appears to be a suitable screening instrument for personality disorders. The non-clinical sample differed significantly from the other subsamples. The items of the PSS-K and the PSS-K score show good convergent validity with the SCID-II questionnaire scores. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, a cut-off value of >4 on the screening measure correctly identified the presence of at least one personality disorder in 93% of cases. Conclusion: Considering the first results, the PSS-K seems to be a reliable and valid screening tool. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.