Psychiatric distress in antisocial drug abusers: relation to other personality disorders.

Antisocial drug abusers with other personality diagnoses have been found to differ from those with the antisocial diagnosis only on a measure of normal personality dimensions, the former group reporting greater proneness to emotional distress and instability. The present study examined the relationship between personality comorbidity among antisocial drug abusers and a standardized measure of current psychiatric distress level. Patients included 167 opioid drug abusers admitted to a community outpatient drug abuse treatment program. The results indicated that the presence of additional personality diagnoses among antisocial drug abusers was associated with high levels of distress compared with those with the antisocial diagnosis only and with those with no personality diagnosis.