PREVALENCE OF SCID-DIAGNOSED PERSONALITY-DISORDERS IN AGORAPHOBIC OUTPATIENTS

The prevalence of DSM-III-R Axis II personality disorders (PDs) and comorbidity of Axis I and Axis II disorders was examined in a sample of 133 agoraphobic outpatients. Diagnoses were assigned according to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). Fifty-six percent of the sample had at least one PD. Diagnoses of the anxious cluster (44% of all clients) were most prevalent. Avoidant personality disorder was the single most frequent Axis II diagnosis (32% of the sample). Presence of a PD was not related to severity or duration of agoraphobic avoidance or frequency of panic attacks. Subjects with a PD were more frequently assigned secondary diagnoses of dysthymia, social phobia, and simple phobia than those without an Axis II disorder. Patients with any PD, those with an anxious cluster diagnosis, and those with a PD diagnosis of the dramatic cluster also showed significantly higher scores on self-reported depression and social fear compared to patients with no PD diagnosis. The data suggest that persistent personality pathology seems to go hand in hand with a chronic form of depression, as well as social anxiety, and that DSM-III-R Axis I and Axis II disorders tend to co-occur.