Clinical importance of personality difficulties: diagnostically sub-threshold personality disorders

BMC Psychiatry

Table 4 The associations of the level of personality disturbance with childhood adversities

		No personality disorder		Personality difficulty		Simple personality disorder		Complex personality disorder		P^a
Number of traumatic events in childhood		n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
0		31	24.2	10	21.2	10	14.7	7	15.7	<0.001
1		23	18.0	8	17.0	8	11.8	8	10.5
2-3		35	27.3	14	29.8	14	20.6	15	19.7
≥4		39	30.5	15	31.9	15	22.1	46	60.5
		128	100.0	47	100.0	68	100.0	76	100.0
Emotional neglect^b	Yes	23	7.6	7	2.3	12	4.0	29	9.6	0.003
Emotional neglect^b	No	279	92.4	295	97.7	290	96.0	273	90.4
Physical abuse^b	Yes	16	5.2	4	1.3	9	2.9	21	6.8	0.011
Physical abuse^b	No	291	94.8	303	98.7	298	97.1	286	93.2
Sexual abuse^b	Yes	7	2.2	3	1.0	8	2.6	15	4.8	0.009
Sexual abuse^b	No	305	97.8	209	99.0	304	97.4	297	95.2

^aChi-square test
^bDue to missing data: Emotional neglect n = 302, Physical abuse n = 307, and Sexual abuse n = 312

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