Personality disorders in older adults: Differences in self‐informant ratings

Abstract

AbstractPrevious research on self‐informant reports in assessing personality disorders (PDs) has been mainly focused on adults, leaving older adults under‐studied. We examined self‐informant agreement in PD screening among older adults (≥60 years) using the Gerontological Personality disorders Scale (GPS). Potential differences such as who reports more personality pathology on a PD screener (i.e., GPS), item accessibility and the effect of relational aspects were studied as well. Data of 326 older adult‐informant dyads, of which the older adults were sampled from five general practices in the Netherlands, were used. Results indicate that self‐informant agreement ranged from r = 0.26–0.73, with lower concordance on the GPS‐subscale measuring intrapersonal aspects of personality pathology. Informants were more sensitive to habitual pathological personality features than older adults. Two GPS items showed differential item functioning across self‐ and informant‐report. Of relational aspects, only congeniality affected the GPS‐iv scores; lower ratings on congeniality were associated with higher GPS‐iv scores (i.e., higher reporting of personality problems).