Antisocial personality disorder in primary care patients with somatization disorder

Antisocial personality disorder and somatization disorder (SD) have been associated in previous research conducted primarily in patients from the mental health setting. We tested the hypothesis that patients with SD from the primary care setting had less likelihood of having comorbid antisocial personality disorder in a sample of 118 patients with SD. Two methods for diagnosing antisocial personality disorder were used: the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R, axis II (SCID-II). Eight percent of the women and between 18% and 25% (depending on the method used) of the men had antisocial personality, a prevalence rate that clearly exceeds the rate found in the general population. However, in clinical work, only one in 10 women and one in six men with SD will have antisocial personality disorder. These findings are consistent with the shared biological substrate hypothesized for the two disorders.