| dc.description.abstract | The literature on personality disorders (PDs) is fraught with contradicting and unclear information on gender differences in prevalence and presentation. Although there are many potential explanations for this trend, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the discrepancies may be best explained by an over-reliance on self-reported information, sampling biases, and the tendency to assess PDs categorically rather than dimensionally. Self-reports offer only one perspective on PD symptoms and may be limited by the individual’s insight and their willingness to report. The inclusion of informant reports may offer a different, but valid and beneficial perspective. Research to this point has shown that major differences can be observed across clinical, community, and other sample types and it may therefore also be beneficial to use carefully selected epidemiological samples in future studies. Furthermore, assessing PDs strictly categorically discounts important sub-threshold information. Dimensional assessment of PDs might reveal more meaningful and consistent trends.
The current investigation attempted to provide clarity to this literature by analyzing PD features dimensionally in a representative epidemiological sample of adults from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network study, using both self- and informant-reported perspectives. Analyses were conducted to examine whether or not differences in PDs can be explained by gender, perspective, or an interaction between the two. | en |
