Diagnosis and Subtypes of Adolescent Antisocial Personality Disorder

Abstract

The present study examined the application of the Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) diagnosis to adolescents and investigated the possibility of subtypes of APD adolescents. As part of a broader study of adolescent personality in clinically-referred patients, experienced clinicians provided personality data on a randomly selected patient in their care using the SWAP-II-A personality pathology instrument. Three hundred thirteen adolescents met adult DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for APD. To characterize adolescents with the disorder, we aggregated the data to identify the items most descriptive and distinctive of APD adolescents relative to other teenagers in the sample (N = 950). Q-factor analysis identified five personality subtypes: psychopathic-like, socially withdrawn, impulsive-histrionic, emotionally dysregulated, and attentionally dysregulated. The five subtypes differed in predictable ways on a set of external criteria related to global adaptive functioning, childhood family environment, and family history of psychiatric illness. Both the APD diagnosis and the empirically derived APD subtypes provided incremental validity over and above the DSM-IV disruptive behavior disorders in predicting global adaptive functioning, number of arrests, early-onset severe externalizing pathology, and quality of peer relationships. Although preliminary, these results provide support for the use of both APD and personality-based subtyping systems in adolescents.