Clinician's judgments of the utility of the DSM-IV and five-factor models for personality disordered patients

The purpose of the current study was to examine the clinical utility of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and the Five Factor Model of personality disorder (FFM; Widiger, Costa, & McCrae, 2002) in describing personality pathology. In the current study, practicing psychologists described one or two of their personality disordered patients in terms of the FFM and DSM models. In some instances, the patient was someone who met the criteria for one of the 10 DSM-IV personality disorders; in others, the patient was someone who received a diagnosis of personality disorder, not otherwise specified. Participants then rated each model on six aspects of clinical utility. The current study found that the FFM was consistently rated higher than the DSM model in terms of four of the six aspects of clinical utility. Across both cases, the clinicians rated the FFM as significantly more useful with respect to its ability to provide a global description of the individual's personality, to communicate information to clients, and to encompass all of the individual's important personality difficulties.