Usefulness of the International Personality Disorder Examination Screening Questionnaire for borderline and impulsive personality pathology in adolescents

The aim of this study was to analyze the usefulness of the International Personality Disorder Examination Screening Questionnaire (IPDE-SQ) for identifying DSM-IV and ICD-10 Borderline and Impulsive personality disorders (PD) in Spanish adolescents.

Method: The DSM-IV and ICD-10 IPDE-SQ screeners were used and compared with the diagnoses obtained with the IPDE semistructured interview in a sample of 125 adolescents treated in a psychiatric department.

Results: For primary screening, the cutoff point with the best combination of sensitivity and specificity for ICD-10 impulsive and borderline PDs was obtained with three positive items, whereas for DSM-IV borderline the best PD cut-off was five positive items. For secondary screening, the best option would be one item above the cut-off points proposed for primary screening.

Conclusion: The 3-item cut-off point in the IPDE-SQ produces a high proportion of false positives on impulsive and borderline PDs in clinical adolescents. We propose several cut-off points, depending on whether the study is designed to perform primary or secondary screening.