[Personality disorders in adolescence. A pilot study on classification and early course]

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Adolescent Psychology
• Clinical Diagnosis

Background:

• Personality disorders in adolescents are challenging to diagnose and track.
• Previous studies often focused on adult populations, leaving adolescent-specific diagnostic validity uncertain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the diagnostic stability of personality disorders in former adolescent psychiatric inpatients.
• To compare the effectiveness of different diagnostic classification systems (ICD 9, ICD 10, DSM-III-R) in adolescents.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective evaluation of 72 adolescent psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with personality disorders.
• Re-examination of 33 patients after an average of 3.4 years.
• Diagnosis comparison using ICD 9 at discharge and ICD 10/DSM-III-R at follow-up.

Main Results:

• Between 40% and 87.9% of initial personality disorder diagnoses were confirmed at follow-up.
• No significant shifts to other psychiatric disorders were observed.
• ICD 10 and DSM-III-R demonstrated better concordance with clinical reality than ICD 9.

Conclusions:

• Diagnostic criteria for personality disorders appear applicable to adolescents, similar to adults.
• ICD 10 and DSM-III-R are more suitable for adolescent personality disorder diagnosis than ICD 9.
• Further research is needed to differentiate personality disorders from related adolescent conditions.