Studies on the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Short Form (DAPP-SF) have shown its ability to identify treatment-seeking patients with personality disorders. This study focuses on its screening potential for personality disorder in 89 criminal suspects (77 men, 12 women; M age = 37.0 years) undergoing residential pretrial psychological assessments in a high-security setting. It was expected that Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality (SIDP-IV) criteria met for personality disorder(s) would be associated with higher DAPP-SF scores. A floor effect was found in DAPP-SF scores: The forensic population reported less personality pathology than the general population. Only moderate associations between DAPP-SF and SIDP-IV outcome were found. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that some DAPP-SF subscales did not exceed chance level in their ability to screen for personality disorders. It is concluded that the DAPP-SF has limited usefulness as a screener for personality disorders in a forensic pretrial setting. Alternative forensic screening instruments are presented.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.