The Level of Personality Functioning Scale Applied to Clinical Material From the Structured Interview of Personality Organization (STIPO): Utility in Detecting Personality Pathology

The Alternative Model for Personality Disorders states that personality pathology involves significant impairment in personality functioning that can be assessed using the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS). However, the ability of the LPFS to capture impairments typical of personality pathology, rather than of general psychopathology, is still unclear. The authors applied a 12-item version of the LPFS to clinical interviews (i.e., the Structured Interview of Personality Organization [STIPO]) to test whether differences in levels of impairment in domains related to both self-and interpersonal functioning can be detected among patients with personality disorders (n = 33), psychiatric outpatients (n = 30), and nonclinical controls (n = 30). Results show that the 12-item version of the LPFS scored using clinical material gathered through STIPO interviews captures impairments in identity, self-direction, and empathy uniquely linked to personality pathology. However, impairments in intimacy do not differentiate between patients with and without personality disorders.