Dysfunctional personality traits: relationship with Five Factor Model, adaptation and symptomatology in a community sample from Buenos Aires

The paper introduces an analysis of the dimensional maladaptive personality traits model stated in the section III of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), conducted on a community sample composed of 906 adults from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Data were gathered using a socio-demographic survey as well as the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), the Big Five Inventory (BFI), the Symptom Check List 90-R (SCL-90-R), and the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0). A joint exploratory factor analysis was carried out including the PID-5’s 25 facets along with BFI’s 5 factors as input variables. Findings showed a 5-factor structure mostly coincident with DSM-5’s hypotheses as well as with previous research. Besides, correlations calculated between PID-5 and BFI scores behaved according to theoretical hypotheses. By means of a two-stage cluster analysis which used WHODAS 2.0 score and the Global Severity Index index from SCL-90-R as segmentation criteria, two groups were differentiated: The High-Adaptation/Low-Symptomatology group vs the Low- Adaptation/High-Symptomatology one. The second group obtained significantly higher means in the five domains, and in 24 of the 25 facets of PID-5.