Borderline Pathology and the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI): An Evaluation of Criterion and Concurrent Validity

Abstract

In this study, we examined how patients diagnosed with borderline pathology (BP) would respond on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) Borderline (BOR) scales in relation to patients without BP pathology. In addition, we examined whether the PAI BOR scales would be related to variables on the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS; Hilsenroth, Stein, & Pinsker, 2004; Westen, 1995) derived from early memory narratives. Results indicate that outpatients with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis of BP scored significantly higher on the PAI BOR Total (BOR-Total) score, Identity Problems, and Self- Harm scales in comparison to a Non-BP clinical sample. The overall correct classification rate for the presence or absence of BP using the BOR Total scale (T >or= 70) was 73%. In addition, there were several significant relationships between dimensional PAI BOR scales and the presence versus absence of DSM-IV BP. Moreover, both the BOR-Total and Affect Instability scales were significantly related to the SCORS variable Complexity of Representations. We provide clinical examples to illustrate these research findings in an applied manner.

Heritability of borderline personality disorder features is similar across three countries

“…Several prior studies have shown the PAI-BOR to be a reliable and valid measure of BPD features, and support the usefulness of the PAI-BOR in assessing BPD features in the general population as well as BPD in the clinical setting (Kurtz et al 1993; Trull, 1995). BellPringle et al (1997) and Stein et al (2007), for example, showed that the PAI-BOR differentiates between patients diagnosed with BPD and patients without borderline personality pathology or unscreened controls with 75% to 80% accuracy. In addition, Jacobo et al (2007) administered the PAI-BOR to patients diagnosed with BPD and found a significant correlation of 0.58 between the total number of BPD SCID-II criteria and the PAI-BOR scale.…”

Readiness to Change as a Predictor of Treatment Engagement and Outcome for Partner Violent Men

“…Men were asked to indicate their responses to statements on a 4-point Likert-type scale ( false , slightly true , mainly true , and very true ). In prior studies, these scales have demonstrated high consistency (Gardner & Qualter, 2009) and good convergent validity with other indicators of personality disorder, including the Minnesota multi-phasic personality inventory (MMPI) and psychopathy checklist-revised (PCL-R) (Edens, Buffington-Vollum, Colwell, Johnson, & Johnson, 2002; Edens, Hart, Johnson, Johnson, & Olver, 2000; Kurtz, Morey, & Tomarken, 1993; Stein, Pinsker-Aspen, & Hilsenroth, 2007). In the current study, coefficient alpha was .80 for the Antisocial scale and .87 for the Borderline scale.…”

Emotion regulation deficits in persons with body-focused repetitive behavior disorders

“…T-scores higher than 50 represent increasingly pathological emotional hyperreactivity. The PAI-BOR-A has demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity in a variety of samples (Morey, 2007, Morey, 1991, Stein et al, 2007 including BFRBD samples (Wetterneck et al, 2016).…”