Screening for Personality Disorders in Psychiatric Settings: Four Recently Developed Screening Measures

Abstract

Prevalence rates for Personality Disorders are higher in psychiatric settings. Nonetheless, the presence of a personality disorder may go undetected for some time during the early phases of treatment. This is problematic as a failure to detect a Personality Disorder as part of the initial evaluation can result in less beneficial treatment plans, negative outcomes, and a more difficult treatment course. Nonetheless, the benefits of early detection must be weighed against practical considerations, including time and resources. Currently gold-standard assessment measures for Personality Disorders are lengthy and time consuming which may limit their practical utility. The present chapter reviews data on the importance of assessing for personality disorders, reviews the benefits of stage I (screening for Personality Disorders) and stage II (thorough evaluation for a Personality Disorder), and then reviews four recently developed measures that can be used as part of the personality disorder screening process. Information on more detailed measures for stage II assessment is also briefly presented and clinical implications are discussed.