The Dependent Personality Questionnaire (DPQ): French translation and validation study in a population of 138 hospitalized psychiatric patients,Le questionnaire de personnalité dépendante (QPD) : traduction francZ̧aise et étude de validation dans une population de 138 patients psychiatriques hospitalisés

G. Loas, J.-L. Monestes, J. Wallier, S. Berthoz, M. Corcos
L'Encéphale. 2010-04-01; 36(2): 111-115
DOI: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.03.008

PubMed
Read on PubMed



1. Encephale. 2010 Apr;36(2):111-5. doi: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.03.008. Epub 2009
Sep 10.

[The Dependent Personality Questionnaire (DPQ): French translation and
validation study in a population of 138 hospitalized psychiatric patients].

[Article in French]

Loas G(1), Monestes JL, Wallier J, Berthoz S, Corcos M.

Author information:
(1)hôpital Pinel, CHU d’Amiens, France.

INTRODUCTION: Dependent personality disorder is a new diagnosis introduced in
the third version of the DSM (DSM-III). Contrary to other disorders of
personality, as the borderline or the schizotypal personalities, there are no
specific interviews or questionnaires focusing on dependent personality. Thus
the study of dependent personality disorder requires the use of global
interviews or questionnaire as the SCID -II or SIDP-IV. Recently, Tyrer and
colleagues (2004) have proposed an 8-item questionnaire, the DPQ (Dependent
Personality Questionnaire). Each item of the DPQ is rated from 0 to 3 with a
total score ranging from 0 to 24. Using a sample of 30 psychiatric patients
presenting various diagnoses and a dependent personality disorder for the half
of the sample, the authors have determined the cutoff score allowing the
diagnosis of DSM-IV Dependent Personality Disorder. A cutoff of 10 was
associated with the best sensitivity (87.5%), specificity (87.5%) and positive
predictive value (87.5%). Moreover, the value of the Youden coefficient
(Sensitivity+Specificity – 100) was 75.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to present the French version of the DPQ and
to determine its psychometric properties as well as the cutoff score.
METHODS: One hundred and thirty-eight psychiatric inpatients (97 females, 41
males) with a mean age of 42.26 years were included in the study. The patients
were hospitalized in an inpatients unit receiving mood disorders, neurotic
disorders or suicide attempters. The subjects filled out the French versions of
the DPQ and the Personality Disorders Questionnaire of Hyler, PDQ-4+. Using the
PDQ-4+ two groups were built: 25 subjects filled out the diagnoses of dependent
personality disorder and 20 subjects did not meet any criteria of dependent
personality disorder. Then, for different values of the DPQ, sensitivity,
specificity and positive predictive value and Youden indicia
(Sensitivity+Specificity – 100) were calculated.
RESULTS: The best values of Youden indicia (74) were obtained for the cutoff of
13 on the DPQ. The corresponding sensitivity, specificity and positive
predictive value were respectively 84, 90 and 91.3%.
CONCLUSION: The French version of the DPQ is now available and permits detection
of dependent personality in French populations.
LIMITATIONS: Our results must be replicated using structured interviews of
personality disorder instead of questionnaires (PDQ-4+) and other samples with
different prevalence of dependent personality disorders must be used to test the
potential cutoff scores of the DPQ.

2009 L’Encéphale, Paris. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.03.008
PMID: 20434627 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Know more about