| Summary: | Abstract Personality disorders (PDs) are relatively common mental disorders associating with other psychiatric disorders and disability. The aim of the study was to determine the occurrence of PDs in a general population subsample and psychiatric hospital patients, the associations of PDs with childhood family structure, the co-occurrence of PD with common psychiatric disorders, and the associations between PDs and temperament. The study is part of the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort Project (NFBC 1966), consisting of cohort members living in Oulu (N = 1,609) on 1st January 1997 (the Oulu Study). The study consisted of a two-stage psychiatric field survey with questionnaires and a structured clinical interview and analysis of the patient records in public outpatient care. Information concerning psychiatric illness of all cohort members (N = 12,058) was gathered from the Finnish Hospital Discharge register (FHDR). The best-estimate procedure was used for the assessment of psychiatric morbidity including PDs. Childhood family structure and other sociodemographic variables were drawn from questionnaires of the field study conducted during earlier follow-up studies. In this study PDs were classified into three clusters: Cluster A (paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal PD), Cluster B (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic PD), and Cluster C (avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, and passive-aggressive PD). The most common PDs in the Oulu Study sample were Cluster C PDs, whereas Cluster B PDs were most common in the hospital-treated sample. PDs were highly associated with mood, anxiety and substance use disorders. Single-parent family type in childhood was associated with PDs, especially Cluster B PDs in adulthood. PD clusters were associated with different profiles of temperament, but the temperament dimensions could not distinguish different PDs very well. These results indicated that it is important to recognize PDs and their comorbid psychiatric disorders. This will have implications in both ...
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