ICD-11 personality disorder features in the danish general population: Cut-offs and prevalence rates for severity levels.

INTRODUCTION

Prevalence rates and correlates of personality disorders (PD) are relevant to health care policy and planning.

OBJECTIVES

To present normative data for self-reported ICD-11 personality disorder (PD) features including tentative cut-off scores and prevalence rates for severity levels along with psychosocial correlates.

METHODS

The Personality Disorder Severity ICD-11 (PDS-ICD-11) scale and criterion measures of impairment were administered to a social-demographically stratified sample of Danish citizens (N = 8,941) of which 3,044 delivered complete data. Item-Response Theory (IRT) was employed to indicate cut-offs based on standard deviations from the latent mean.

RESULTS

The unidimensionality of the PDS-ICD-11 score was supported and IRT analysis suggested norm-based thresholds at latent severity levels. Expected associations with criterion measures were found.

CONCLUSION

The normative data portray ICD-11 PD features in the general population and allow for interpretation of PDS-ICD-11 scores (e.g., scores of 12, 16, and 19 may indicate mild, moderate, and severe dysfunction), which may inform health care policy and planning. A total weighted prevalence of 6.9 % of the Danish general population is estimated to have clinically significant personality dysfunction, proportionally composed of Mild (4.8 %), Moderate (1.2 %), and Severe (0.9 %) levels. Future research should corroborate these findings using relevant clinical samples and methods.