Personality disorders improve in patients treated for major depression

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Personality disorders are often considered chronic and treatment-resistant.
• Understanding the trajectory of personality disorders in the context of major depressive disorder treatment is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the stability of personality disorders.
• To assess changes in personality disorder symptoms during major depression treatment.

Main Methods:

• 149 outpatients with major depression were assessed for personality disorders at baseline and after 18 months.
• The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SCID-II) was utilized for systematic assessment.

Main Results:

• Personality disorder diagnoses and symptoms exhibited low-to-moderate stability (kappa = 0.41).
• Significant reductions in personality disorder diagnoses and symptoms were observed over 18 months of treatment.
• A trend indicated that better depression treatment response correlated with greater loss of personality disorder symptoms, though improvement occurred even in non-recovered patients.

Conclusions:

• Personality disorders are not inherently stable and demonstrate treatment responsiveness.
• In patients with major depression, personality disorder symptoms generally improve significantly, irrespective of their depressive symptom treatment outcome.