St. John's University

Psychometric Properties of the SIDP-SR

The Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV) is a structured interview that assists in the diagnoses of DSM-IV personality disorders. A series of questions, rephrased from the criteria in the DSM-IV and grouped by the 10 official personality disorders, are used to determine the presence or absence of various behaviors and personal beliefs. The subject is asked to focus on his �usual self� over the past 5 years. Each question is then rated 0 (not present), 1 (subthreshold, some evidence of the trait, but it is not sufficiently pervasive or severe to consider the criterion present), 2 (present, criterion is clearly present for most of the last 5 years for at least 50% of the time), or 3 (strongly present, associated with subjective distress or impairment in social or occupational functioning). The questions on the SIDP-IV are grouped thematically into similar content areas, such as interpersonal relationships, interests and activities, social conformity, and emotions. Such an interview is less prone to halo effects, in which the ratings for the individual criteria are influenced by how close the individual is to meeting the criteria for a particular disorder (Zimmerman et. al, 2005)

The Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders Self-Report (SIDP-SR) is a True/False self-report questionnaire created from the SIDP-IV as a screener so only positively endorsed questions would be explored further. However, there are no studies on the psychometric properties of the SIDP � SR and this study serves as an attempt to fill in that gap in the literature.

We will be looking to present internal consistency data of the SIDP - SR using the Cronbach Alpha as well as test-retest reliability on a smaller population of about 25 undergraduates. We will also be looking at convergent validity between the SIDP � SR and three other instruments � the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP), the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP) and the NEO Personality Inventory � Revised (NEO-PI-R).