Personality disorder screenings: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Personality disorders (PD) are highly prevalent and impairing stable patterns of maladaptive behavior that are associated to high health care costs. Although PD detection in clinical settings is a priority issue, it is still unknown which are the most reliable and valid screening instruments. For this purpose, 26 studies examining the diagnostic ability of 19 different screening tools that included structured interviews as the gold standard were meta-analyzed. The total median for the kappa was 0.40 (range 0.14 to 0.86), indicating poor to moderate agreement. Brief instruments created ad hoc showed the best predictive ability (Md-kappa=0.56) and are, because of their easy application, the first-line screening tools.