Gender differences in personality disorders in psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents.

Abstract

The authors examined gender differences in DSM-III-R personality disorders in adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Structured diagnostic interviews were reliably performed with a series of 138 consecutively admitted adolescent inpatients. To reduce variability due to heterogeneity of axis I diagnoses, a subgroup of 87 patients with major depression was retested for gender differences. Females were significantly more likely than males to meet the criteria for borderline personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder was diagnosed only in males. A similar pattern was observed in the subgroup of patients with major depression. The findings suggest potentially important gender differences in personality disorders in adolescent inpatients.