Personality Disorders: Epidemiology And Public Health Issues

Personality disorders are a class of mental disorders in which a person have a pattern of behaving, thinking and perceiving to situations. Individuals may also experience difficulties in cognition and impulse control. . Nearly one in ten individuals in the community (Samuels J. Personality disorders: epidemiology and public health issues. Int Rev Psychiatry 2011;23:223–33)and 30–50% of psychiatric patients [ Melartin TK, Rytsa¨la¨ HJ, Leskela¨ US, Lestela¨-Mielonen PS, Sokero TP, Isometsa¨ ET. Current comorbidity of psychiatric disorders among DSM-IV major depressive disorder patients in psychiatric care in the Vantaa Depression Study. J Clin Psychiatry 2002;63:126–34.] have at least one personality disorder. Disorders have their onset, not only in the early childhood or teenage years, but also throughout middle age. They may be associated with genetic factors, family or experiences during childhood. In some cases, a person may not realize having a personality disorder and it is possible to blame others and outside circumstances which causes significant problems in work, school, relationships or other areas of functioning.
In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), [1] the personality disorders fall into 10 distinct types ,which are divided into three different categories, based on similar characteristics, called