Am J Psychiatry 1993; 150:1233-1236
Copyright © 1993 by American Psychiatric Association
Comorbidity of conduct disorder and personality disorders in an incarcerated juvenile population
TD Eppright, JH Kashani, BD Robison and JC Reid
Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology, Pediatrics, and Biostatistics, University of Missouri-Columbia 65212.
OBJECTIVE: Youths with conduct disorder extract an inordinate amount of
time and money from the U.S. judicial system and taxpayers, yet studies
pertaining to this population have been few. This study was undertaken to
examine the co-occurrence of personality disorders and conduct disorder in
a group of incarcerated children and adolescents and to raise the issue of
the possibility of antisocial personality disorder in persons under the age
of 18 years. METHOD: One hundred incarcerated juvenile offenders aged 11-17
years were randomly selected and then interviewed with the Diagnostic
Interview for Children and Adolescents-- Revised and the Structured
Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders to establish their
psychiatric diagnoses. RESULTS: Eighty- seven percent of the group met the
criteria for conduct disorder. Among those diagnosed as having conduct
disorder, the only comorbid personality disorder that was present with
significant frequency was antisocial personality disorder. The other
comorbid personality disorder diagnoses that appeared most frequently were
the borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, passive-aggressive, and dependent
types. Borderline personality disorder was observed more frequently in the
females than in the males with conduct disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The findings
suggest that by using DSM-III-R criteria for adult personality disorders,
one finds a considerable number of personality disorders in a young
population with conduct disorder. The findings also show that youths
manifest signs of antisocial personality disorder before they are 18 years
of age, raising the question of how age should be incorporated into the
diagnosis of personality disorder as DSM-IV is being prepared.
