Determine the prevalence of personality disorders in an inpatient developmental delay population.

Find individual-biological-social factors that may be associated with personality disorder.

A cross-sectional study of 14 patients admitted to a Spanish developmental delay unit. Standard procedures were followed in all the measurements (i.e., socio-demographics, etc) as well as in the evaluation of developmental delay, Axis I and Axis V.

As expected all patietns have been diagnosed with developmental delay while the 64% were males. The 50% of them had diagnosed with mild developmental delay, 43% with moderate and 7% with severe symptoms. The mean age was 31.14±9.65 years and the mean hospitalization in the unit was 29.36±18.96 months. The mean Axis V score (0-100) among the 14 patients was 45.07±11.

Among the patients, the highest prevalence of Axis I disorders, had other disorders (64%), followed by impulse control disorders (43%), psychoses (21%), mood disorders (14%) and substance abuse (7%).

The 29% of the sample have been diagnosed with personality disorder, and specifically the 50% was diagnosed as Cluster B. There was a significant difference on personality disorder Cluster B among males and females (0% vs 40%, p=0.04). Moreover a strong association among female gender and personality disorder Cluster B was evaluated (r= −0.54, p=0.04).

Conclusions:

More than the half of the patients had diagnosed with mild and moderate symptoms of developmental delay. Among them, the personality disorder Cluster B, seems to be related wtih the female gender.