Table 2 shows the reliability coefficients of the DAPP-BQ scales in five German subsamples in comparison to the internal consistencies of the scales of the original Canadian form in a large general population and a clinical sample. In general, the alpha coefficients are uniformly high and very similar across countries (Germany vs. Canada), subject samples (general population vs. clinical sample), mode of presentation (online-internet vs. paper-pencil), and the kind of target assessed by the DAPP-BQ (self-report vs. observer report).

Table 3: A comparison of the DAPP-BQ factor structure across the different samples leads to the same conclusion. In general, the Kaiser-Guttman criterion, the Scree-Test, as well as the results from parallel analyses indicated four important factors, with the exception of the results from the parallel analysis in the German clinical sample which indicated only three important factors.

Table 4: An almost perfect replication of the DAPP-BQ factor structure is indicated by the high factor congruence coefficients calculated between the corresponding varimax-rotated principal components from all sub-samples.

Conclusions

DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY AND PERSONALITY PATHOLOGYVALIDATION OF THE GERMAN DAPP-BQ

Department of PsychologyFritz Ostendorf University of Bielefeld, Germany

Universität Bielefeld

Abstract Method

The Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology -Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ; Livesley & Jackson, 2009) is a 290-item questionnaire to assess 18 traits providing a systematic representation of the total domain of personality disorders. The presentation reports on the development and psychometric properties of the German version of the DAPP-BQ. Analyses of data obtained from both non-clinical (N = 8313) and clinical samples (N = 410) support the reliability and validity of the German version and the high equivalence of the German and the original Canadian forms. Particularly, DAPP-BQ scores were internally consistent in self- and other reports, relatively stable over time, showed a high cross-cultural stability of the postulated factor structure as well as a high convergent and discriminant validity when correlated with scores from various conceptually related and unrelated measures of personality and personality disorders.

The DAPP-BQ was administered in several single studies along with various additional personality measures, for example,

• the revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992),• the Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model (SIFFM; Trull & Widiger, 1997),• the SCID Axis II Personality Questionnaire (SCID-II-PQ; First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams & Benjamin,

1997)• the Coolidge Axis II Inventory (CATI; Coolidge, 1993),• and the Assessment of DSM-IV Personality Disorders questionnaire (ADP-IV; Schotte & De

Doncker, 1996).

The categorical classification of personality disorders has been criticized for decades and various dimensional approaches to personality disorder diagnosis have been proposed to replace DSM-IV Axis II (Widiger & Simonsen, 2005). John Liveley's dimensional approach most probably belongs to the group of those models that have had a major impact on the conceptualization of the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders included in DSM-5 Section III. For example, there is a strong overlap between the personality disorder trait domains and facets as defined by the alternative DSM-5 model and measured by Liveley and Jackson's DAPP - Basic Questionnaire. Because the DAPP-BQ (Livesley & Jackson, 2009) reliably measures the most important trait domains and facets of personality disorders, the questionnaire seems to be a promising tool for the description and diagnosis of personality disorders within the framework of an alternative dimensional model for personality disorders.

Development of the DAPP-BQOne of the most important features of the DAPP-BQ is that its construction was based on a very large and comprehensive pool of items. The questionnaire was developed to describe the basic structure of personality disorders. Quite similar to a "psycho-lexical approach" Livesley first tried to compile a most comprehensive list of trait descriptors and behavioral acts from an extensive review of the clinical lore documented in the clinical literature that were characteristic features of personality disorders. Initially, this list of descriptive features was organized into the 11 personality disorders listed in DSM-III. However, the next step was to organize the descriptive features into trait categories using clinical judgements (prototypicality ratings) and rational methods. This resulted in 79 traits. About 4000 questionnaire items were written to assess the psychometric properties of the trait scales in a large sample. The results ofthese studies led to refinement of some scales and the number of traits increased to 100. Finally, a series of factor analysis of these 100 scales in clinical and non-clinical samples led to the definition of the 18 basic dimensions of personality disorders assessed by the DAPP-BQ. The common variance of these 18 basic dimensions can be reliably described by four higher-order factors - the labels of the 18 DAPP-BQ scales and higher-order factors are listed in Table 3.

Development of the German version and purpose of the present study.Due to the excellent psychometric properties of the DAPP-BQ and its solid theoretical background we decided to adapt the original Canadian form to the German context. An iterative backtranslation procedure was used to translate the English DAPP-BQ items. The items were translated by a team of seven German psychologists into German, retranslated by a British psychologist, and checked by the authors of the original version who returned their corrections and remarks to the German team. Since then the authorized German version of the DAPP-BQ has been used by various authors1 in several studies who contributed with their data to the total sample of N = 8829 DAPP-BQ test protocols that were used to present the psychometric properties of the German DAPP-BQ in the present study.

Introduction Results

The basic structure of personality of personality structure as measured by the DAPP-BQ can be generalized to the German context. The psychometric properties of the German DAPP-BQ reported in this study are highly equivalent to the original Canadian form. Due to the strong conceptual overlap between the traits assessed by the DAPP-BQ and the personality disorder traits specified in the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders, the DAPP-BQ can be used to assess the major dimensions of the alternative DSM-5 model in a highly reliable way. Further studies are needed to explore, the measurement equivalence of the DAPP-BQ scales across samples in greater detail.

Table 1 gives an overview of the subsamples included in the total data set of N = 8829 DAPP-BQ protocols analyzed in the present study. The largest single study was an internet study carried out in by Willibald Ruch at Zurich University, Switzerland (www.charakterstaerken.org/) who kindly provided us with an online data set of n = 4281 DAPP-BQ test protocols. One study (n = 107) used an observer form in addition to the self-report form of the DAPP-BQ to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the 18 personality disorder dimensions.

ReferencesCoolidge, F.L. (1993). The Coolidge Axis II Inventory: Manual. University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.Costa, P. T. (Jr.) & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory. Professional Manual. Odessa, Fl.: Psychological Assessment Resources.First, M.B., Gibbon M., Spitzer R.L., Williams, J.B.W., Benjamin L.S. (1997). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders, (SCID-II). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.Livesley, W. J. & Jackson, D. (2009). Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology -Basic Questionnaire – Technical Manual. Port Huron, MI: Sigma Press.Schotte, C. & De Doncker, D. (1996): ADP-IV Questionnaire: Manual and Norms.University Hospital Antwerpen.Trull, T. J. & Widiger, T. A. (1997). Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model of Personality (SIFFM). Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Widiger, T. A. & Simonsen, E. (2005). Alternative dimensional models of personality disorder: finding a common ground. Journal of Personality Disorders, 19, 110-30.

Table 5. The results in Table 5 strongly support the assumption that the four major dimensions of personality disorder largely correspond to four of the five broad domains of normal personality covered by the FFM.

Table 6. This table shows that the four DAPP-BQ higher-order factors are meaningfully related to the DSM-IV personality disorders as measured by the CATI, the SKID-II personality inventory, and the ADP-IV. However, Table 6 also indicates some variation in the relationships between the DAPP-BQ and DSM constructs that may be due to the imperfect correspondence of the scales of the three “DSM inventories”.

Author Note1 Our special thanks go to Peter Becker, Ingrid Buiker, Natalie Deux, Barbara Egerding, Anett Hentschel, Ines Maisch, Natascha Neumann, Susanne Ostertag, Willibald Ruch and Claudia Harzer, Miriam Schuler, Regine Steiner, Nadja Wiebe, and Anja Wolff who kindly placed their data sets at our disposal