The personality disorders: A review and critique of contemporary assessment strategies

Despite the prevalence of personality disorders, only recently have they become the topic of extensive clinical research. Unfortunately, much of this research suffers from various assessment problems including poor interrater agreement, an overreliance on cross-sectional assessment, and inconsistencies across measures. The present review examines the strategies used to assess personality disorders. Three comprehensive tables are used to provide a quantitative review of existing studies. Although specific measures are examined, the focus remains on general strategies for assessment. Personality disorder assessment may be enhanced through the use of aggregation methods. Aggregating over raters can reduce the subjective biases inherent in any one person's perception. Aggregating data over time reduces the instability of personality assessment, while aggregating data across measures reduces the reliance on any one measure to assess personality disorders accurately. Thus, future research should be able to refine the strategies used to study personality disorders.