Psychopathological Stability of Personality Disorders in Substance Abuse Patients Treated in a Therapeutic Community

Abstract

The objective of this study is to explore the stability of personality dimensions in a selection of psychoactive substance abuse patients during treatment in therapeutic communities. The baseline assessment was conducted 15 to 20days from the start of therapeutic community treatment, and the second assessment was conducted 3 months after admission. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III was used to assess personality dimensions. At 3 months, a reduction was observed in the mean severity scores of most personality dimensions in both patterns and clinical syndromes. Caution should be exercised when assessing and diagnosing personality disorders in a drug addict population because one must consider the presence of abuse concomitant factors that may erroneously increase the comorbidity of personality disorders and related substance abuse disorders.