Psychometric Properties of the Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP) in Two Samples

This study investigated psychometric properties of a dimensional measure of maladaptive core pathology for personality disorders, the Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP). The study analyzed data from 941 respondents in a community sample, 949 psychiatric patients with Personality Disorders (PD), and 413 psychiatric patients without PD in Norway. The facets of SIPP had acceptable internal consistency, but the construct validity of some facets had potentials for improvement. The original SIPP domains (the factor structures of the facets) were not supported, and factor analysis gave different results across the three current study samples. All facets of SIPP have good discriminative properties with respect to differentiating between a nonclinical sample, a clinical sample without PD, and a clinical PD sample. Further research and improvements in SIPP are suggested.