Prevalence of personality disorder in adults
Published
There is a new version of this page. View the latest version.
1. Main facts and figures
-
there were no meaningful differences identified between adults from different ethnic groups, and as such these figures should not be used as evidence of real differences between ethnic groups in the population as a whole
-
although the table shows differences between groups for the percentage screening positive, sample sizes were too small to draw reliable conclusions about these results
Things you need to know
A positive screen for personality disorder only indicates that someone reported having a certain number of personality characteristics that suggest they may have a personality disorder. The questions in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) are used to estimate how common personality disorder is likely to be in the adult population, but they aren’t used as part of any national screening programme in England.
Keep in mind when making comparisons between ethnic groups that all survey estimates are subject to a degree of uncertainty as they are based on a sample of the population. The degree of uncertainty is greater when the number of respondents is small, so it will be highest for minority ethnic groups. In this situation, the numbers of respondents in each group were too small to make any conclusions about differences between them.
The survey covers adults aged 16 or over who live in private households. It doesn’t include those who live in institutional settings (such as hospitals or prisons) or in temporary housing (such as hostels or bed and breakfasts) or those who sleep rough. People living in such settings are likely to have worse mental health than those living in private households. There were 7,546 respondents to the survey.
These statistics are based on participants’ direct responses (as opposed to someone else filling in the survey). As a result, socially undesirable or stigmatised feelings and behaviours may be under-reported. This is a risk with any survey based on self-reported data.
The ethnic groupings used here are broad; there is no breakdown of data for the more specific ethnic groups each contains. Some of the specific ethnic groups have very different experiences to one another. For example, the Black/Black British group could include both recent migrants from Somalia and Black people born in Britain to British parents.
What the data measures
This measure shows an estimate of the percentage of adults (aged 16 and over) in England who would screen positive for any personality disorder. The data for this measure was collected in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) that was conducted in private households across England in 2014.
A personality disorder is defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that:
- deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture
- is pervasive and inflexible
- has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood but is stable over time
- leads to distress or impairment
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about detailed ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following broad groups, based on the ONS harmonised ethnic group questions for use on national surveys.
- White British
- White Other
- Black/Black British
- Asian/Asian British
- Mixed/Multiple and Other
2. Prevalence of screening positive for a personality disorder in adults, England, 2014
| Ethnicity | All | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asian | 17.3 | 22.7 | 10.8 |
| Black | 17.0 | 16.1 | 17.7 |
| Mixed other | 16.7 | 10.2 | 21.9 |
| White British | 13.9 | 13.0 | 14.9 |
| White other | 14.2 | 16.8 | 11.7 |
Download table data for ‘Prevalence of screening positive for a personality disorder in adults, England, 2014’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Prevalence of screening positive for a personality disorder in adults, England, 2014’ (CSV)
Summary of Prevalence of personality disorder in adults Prevalence of screening positive for a personality disorder in adults, England, 2014 Summary
This data shows that:
-
no significant difference between ethnic groups has been observed in terms of the likelihood of screening positive for personality disorder
-
the percentage of adults screening positive for personality disorder ranges from 13.9% to 17.3% depending on their ethnic group (but again these differences are not statistically significant)
3. Methodology
The Standardised Assessment of Personality: Abbreviated Scale (SAPAS) was used to measure the likelihood that an individual has a personality disorder in a more general sense, as opposed to screening for specific types of personality disorder. Each of the 8 questions on the SAPAS asked participants to indicate whether or not they had a particular personality characteristic, for example “Are you normally an impulsive sort of person?” Participants could answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A score of one was given for each item answered ‘yes’, generating a score of 0–8. Those scoring 4 or more were defined as screening positive for possible personality disorder.
Each survey involved interviewing a large stratified probability sample of the general population, covering people living in private households. The full adult age range was covered, with the youngest participants aged 16 and the oldest over 100.
The two-phase survey design involved an initial interview with the whole sample, followed up with a structured assessment carried out by clinically trained interviewers with a subset of participants. People were assessed or screened for a range of different types of mental disorder, from common conditions like depression and anxiety disorder through to less common neurological and mental conditions such as psychotic disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
The resulting statistics for positive screen for personality disorder have been age-standardised. This is because the prevalence of mental disorders is related to age and the age profile (the number of people of different ages within an ethnic group) can differ considerably between ethnic groups. This adjustment allows comparisons to be made between ethnic groups as if they had the same age profile.
The survey covers people who live in private households. It doesn’t include those who live in institutional settings (such as hospitals or prisons) or in temporary housing (such as hostels or bed and breakfasts) or those who sleep rough. People living in such settings are likely to have worse mental health than those living in private households (Gill et al. 1996; cited in APMS 2014).
Where a selected participant could not take part in a long interview due to a physical or mental health condition, some information about this was recorded by the interviewer on the doorstep. This information may be biased due to it having been collected from another household member.
Socially undesirable or stigmatised feelings and behaviours may be underreported. While this is a risk for any study based on self-report data, the study goes some way to minimising this by collecting particularly sensitive information in a self-completion format.
Some people selected for the survey could not be contacted or refused to take part. The achieved response rate (57%) is in line with that of similar surveys (Barnes et al. 2010; cited in APMS 2014). Weighting helps take account of those who were selected for the survey but didn’t take part.
Weighting is used to adjust the results of a survey to make them representative of the population and improve their accuracy. For example, a survey which contains 25% females and 75% males will not accurately reflect the views of the general population which we know is around 50% male and 50% female.
More detailed information on the weighting used here can be found on page 24 of the Methods chapter of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014 (PDF opens in a new window or tab).
Confidence intervals
The confidence intervals for each ethnic group are available in the ‘download the data’ section and also available from the CSV downloads for ‘Percentage of individuals who screened positive for personality disorder by sex and broad ethnic group, England 2014’.
14.9% of White British women surveyed screened positive for personality disorder. This is a reliable estimate of the percentage of White British women in England who experience any personality disorder, but because the APMS results are based on a random sample of adults aged 16 or older it’s impossible to be 100% certain of the true percentage.
It’s 95% certain, however, that somewhere between 13.3 to 16.5% of all White British women in England would screen positive for a personality disorder. In statistical terms, this is a 95% confidence interval. This means that if 100 random samples were taken, then 95 times out of 100 the estimate would fall in this range (ie between the upper and lower confidence interval). But 5 times out of 100 it would fall outside this range.
The smaller the survey sample, the more uncertain the estimate and the wider the confidence interval. For example, fewer women from the Black/Black British ethnic group were sampled for this survey than British White women, so we can be less certain about the estimate for the smaller group. This greater uncertainty is expressed by the wider confidence interval of between 9.6% and 30.5%.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
There is no risk to disclosure as the analysis is based on broad ethnic groups, without further disaggregation. Therefore no data has been suppressed.
Rounding
Percentages have been rounded to one decimal point.
Quality and methodology information
Further technical information
APMS 2014 Background Data Quality Statement (PDF opens in a new window or tab)
4. Data sources
Source
Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, England, 2014
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
NHS Digital
Publication frequency
Every 7 years (further publications dependent on further surveys being commissioned)
Purpose of data source
The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey provides data on the prevalence of treated and untreated psychiatric disorders in English adults aged 16 and over.
5. Download the data
The percentages of individuals who screened positive for any personality disorder in England, 2014, by sex and broad age group with 95% confidence intervals.