Background: The aim of this study was to contribute to clarification of the relations between antisocial personality disorder (APD) and its potential risk factors in a population of 560 French male prisoners.
Methods: Adverse childhood was assessed as a latent variable determined by several traumatic events. APD (MINI), character and temperament (Cloninger's model), WAIS®-III similarities subtest and psychosocial characteristics were assessed by two clinicians. The WAIS®-III subtest accounts for verbal and cognitive performance. We used a structural model to determine the weight of the different pathways between adverse childhood and APD.
Results: Study confirmed the major and direct role of adverse childhood (standardized coefficient=0.48). An intermediate effect mediated by character (considered as a global variable) and novelty-seeking was also shown, confirming previous results from the literature.
Conclusion: This study emphasizes the role of adverse childhood in APD, suggesting the potential benefit of early intervention in the prevention of antisocial behaviours.
Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.