Histrionic disorder among Iranian high school and college students

This study was designed to explore the sex and group differences in histrionic personalities of high school and university students, and also to explore the results of this study with those of Crown and Crisp from 1966 in England. A sample of 160 high school students (80 girls and 80 boys) were selected randomly from four high schools in Shiraz and Shiraz University. The mean ages for high school girls and boys were 15.3 and 17.3 yr., for university women and men were 20.6 and 23.2 yr., respectively. The hysteria (H) scale of the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire was used. The questions of this scale refer to histrionic personality according to DSM-III and DSM-III--R. Analysis showed significant effects of group (high school, college) for histrionic personality disorder. It was concluded that more histrionic personality disorders were reported among British college students than among their Iranian peers.