The concurrent validity of a Web‐based self‐report assessment for personality disorders

Incorporating online tools in clinical practice could help improve routine assessments of personality disorders and their co-occurring clinical disorders. TeleScreen, a Web-based self-report questionnaire for DSM-IV disorders, has not yet been compared with well-validated structured interviews for clinical and personality disorders. Patients with personality disorders (n = 89) were assessed with TeleScreen and independently interviewed with Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis-I disorders (SCID-I) and personality disorders (SCID-II). The concurrent validity was examined using sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. Five personality disorders had a prevalence rate higher than 4% and could be examined in the analyses: borderline, obsessive-compulsive, dependent, avoidant and paranoid personality disorders. TeleScreen showed moderate to good validity for borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder but suboptimal validity for the dependent, avoidant and paranoid personality disorders. Clinical disorders showed moderate to good values, except for social phobia, dysthymia and eating disorders. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the concurrent validity of TeleScreen for some personality disorders, such as the borderline personality disorder, and pave the way for larger studies to confirm these results. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.