3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The prevalence of personality pathology in adolescence.(2009-09-03T06:12:35Z) Card, MelissaOver the past twenty years, there seems to have been an increased interest on the topic of adolescent personality pathology among researchers and clinicians in the field of psychiatry and clinical psychology. There have been many contentious debates on the topic, the most prominent being around the possibility of diagnosing a personality disorder or variant thereof in adolescence. With this in mind, the researcher attempted to understand some of the most pertinent debates as well as investigate some of the hypotheses proposed in the arguments. The main focus of the study was on the possibility of diagnosing personality pathology in adolescence and whether or not this was being achieved in an inpatient psychiatric ward. The present study quantitatively investigated the prevalence of personality pathology as well as the extent to which health care professionals in South Africa are diagnosing various personality pathologies among adolescents admitted to an inpatient psychiatric ward. The data collected has been analysed using the statistical study of frequencies and correlations, in order to assess whether there were positive correlations between genders, Axis I disorders, a set of reported problematic or pathological behavioural symptoms and having an Axis II diagnosis. The results reveal that clinicians are cautiously diagnosing personality pathology in an inpatient adolescent psychiatric ward, with the borderline personality pathology being the most prevalent.