The Iowa Personality Disorder Screen: Development and Preliminary Validation of a Brief Screening Interview

Journal of Personality Disorders, 13(1), 75-89, 1999

1999 The Guilford Press

THE IOWA PERSONALITY DISORDER SCREEN:

DEVELOPMENT AND PRELIMINARY VALIDATION

OF A BRIEF SCREENING INTERVIEW

Douglas R. Langbehn, MD, PhD, Bruce M. Pfohl, MD,

Sarah Reynolds, MA, Lee Anna Clark, PhD, Marco Battaglia,

MD, Laura Bellodi, MD, Remi Cadoret, MD, William Grove, PhD, Paul Pilkonis, PhD and Paul Links, MD

The length and expense of comprehensive personality disorder

interviews makes them unwieldy for routine use. A brief but sensitive screen could eliminate administration of longer in

struments in many instances. We describe the development of

the Iowa Personality Disorder Screen (IPDS) a mini-struc tured interview which can be completed in less than 5 min

utes. Retrospective analyses using 1,203 SIDP-R interviews

suggested that the IPDS items should provide good sensitivity

and specificity. We present results from a prospective valida

tion study, using a mixed group of 52 nonpsychotic inpatients and outpatients who were diagnosed using the SIDP-IV. Blind

administration of the IPDS yielded excellent sensitivity (92%) and good specificity (79%), using a subset of five screening

items. Addition of two more items leads to an estimated sensi

tivity of 79% and specificity of 86%. The IPDS shows promise

as a quick personality disorder screen for use in research set

tings or standard clinical interviews.

The comprehensive assessment of DSM personality disorder (PD) can be a

difficult and time-consuming endeavor. Understandably, in making Axis II

From the Department of Psychiatry, VA Medical Center (D. R. L.): the Department of

Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine (D. R. L., B. M. P., R. C); the Department

of Preventive Medicine, Biostatistics Division, University of Iowa College of Medicine (D. R. L.,

B. M. P.): the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington

Medical Center (S. R.); the Department of Psychology, University of Iowa (L. A. C); the

Department of Neuropsychlatric Sciences, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan (M. B.,

L. B.): the Department of Psychology, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan (M. B.): the

Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota College of Medicine (W. G.): the Department

of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of

Medicine (P. P.); and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto (P. L.).

This work supported, in part,...