Internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions and clinical problems in adolescents.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Adolescent Health

Background:

• Psychiatric comorbidity is often linked to shared underlying dimensions.
• The relationship between personality pathology and other clinical constructs in adolescents, specifically through internalizing and externalizing dimensions, remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether higher-order internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions explain the comorbidity between personality pathology and other clinical constructs in adolescents.
• To assess the impact of controlling for these dimensions on the associations observed.

Main Methods:

• Principal components analysis was used on personality pattern scales from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory in a sample of 492 adolescent inpatients.
• Relations between derived internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions and measures of psychopathology (depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse) and clinical dysfunction (self-esteem, suicidality, violence) were assessed.
• Analyses were conducted both before and after controlling for the higher-order personality dimensions.

Main Results:

• Associations between specific personality scales and indicators of psychopathology and clinical dysfunction were minimal after controlling for the higher-order internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions.
• These higher-order dimensions appeared to account for the majority of the observed relationships.

Conclusions:

• Internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions are significant explanatory factors for the associations between personality patterns and indicators of psychopathology and clinical dysfunction in adolescent patients.
• These findings suggest a dimensional approach to understanding personality pathology and its comorbidity in adolescents.