Validity and reliability of a Spanish version of the Standardised Assessment of Personality-Abbreviated Scale (SAPAS) for personality disorder screening in community mental health settings

Abstract

Backgrounds and objectives: Personality disorders (PDs) are an essential public health problem being frequently underdiagnosed in the mental health (MH) services. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study performed in patients attending a community mental health care out-patient clinic. The Standardised Assessment of Personality-Abbreviated Scale (SAPAS) was administered to 59 consecutively agreeing to take part. SAPAS factorial structure was analyzed utilizing principal component analysis with calculation of Cronbach’s ˛ to check for internal consistency. Subsequently, SAPAS criterion validity was established comparing it with the Spanish version of the International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE) by performing a ROC curve to determine sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values for different cut-off points. Finally, correlations were estimated between the SAPAS scores and dimensional scores for the different IPDE PD types. Results: Three factors were achieved, each one closely related to the three DSM-5 PD groups (A---C) explaining 64.1% of total variance in the model. SAPAS internal consistency measured with Cronbach’s ˛ was 0.66. The area under the curve (AUC) was found to be 0.89. A cut-off point of 5 showed 84% sensitivity and 79% specificity, correctly classifying 81.5% of the individuals. Conclusions: SAPAS is a valid and reliable PD screening instrument in patients attending com- munity mental health settings.