IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v59y2013i3p274-280.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Influence of dependent personality status on the outcome and health service costs of health anxiety

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Tyrer
  • Peter Tyrer
  • Barbara Barrett

Abstract

Objective: To assess the effect of dependent personality disturbance as an influence on the cost and clinical outcome of health anxiety. Method: In the course of a randomized trial of treatments for patients with high health anxiety over 12 months, we also recorded dependent personality status by two methods: the Personality Assessment Schedule (an observer-rated instrument) and the self-rated Dependent Personality Questionnaire (DPQ), the latter being administered at baseline, six months and 12 months. The two main hypotheses tested were that patients with dependent personality features would have a worse outcome and attract greater health service costs. Results: Forty-nine patients took part in the trial; all had baseline dependent personality data, 44 provided health service costs, and 38 had observer-rated personality assessments. At baseline patients with any personality disorder had higher clinical ratings for health anxiety, and dependent personality disturbance, mainly in the form of personality difficulty, was associated with a worse outcome than those without dependent personalities after correction for baseline differences. The DPQ at a score of 15 successfully identified all patients with dependent personality disorder in both ICD and DSM classifications and showed a significant but relatively modest reduction in scores of 1.5 (13%) during the course of the 12-month trial. Costs in those separated by personality status showed those with dependent personality incurred 45% more health service costs than those without these personality characteristics ( p = .10). No patient with dependent personality disorder dropped out of treatment compared with 6 out of 38 (16%) of those with no dependence. Conclusions: The DPQ is probably a reliable instrument for assessing dependent personality characteristics without the need for interview and its scores, unlike many ratings of personality, are stable over time. The findings may have been influenced by different responses to those treated in the trial with cognitive behaviour therapy compared with control treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Tyrer & Peter Tyrer & Barbara Barrett, 2013. "Influence of dependent personality status on the outcome and health service costs of health anxiety," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 59(3), pages 274-280, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:59:y:2013:i:3:p:274-280
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764012438483
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764012438483
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764012438483?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Tyrer & Ula Nur & Mike Crawford & Saffron Karlsen & Claire MacLean & Bharti Rao & Tony Johnson, 2005. "The Social Functioning Questionnaire: A Rapid and Robust Measure of Perceived Functioning," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 51(3), pages 265-275, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reema Samuel & Paul SS Russell & Tapan Kumar Paraseth & Sharmila Ernest & KS Jacob, 2016. "Development and validation of the Vellore Occupational Therapy Evaluation Scale to assess functioning in people with mental illness," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(7), pages 616-626, November.
    2. Andrew Stickley & Ai Koyanagi, 2018. "Physical multimorbidity and loneliness: A population-based study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, January.
    3. Sarah Butter & Jamie Murphy & Mark Shevlin & James Houston, 2017. "Social isolation and psychosis-like experiences: a UK general population analysis," Psychosis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 291-300, October.
    4. Daniel Fu Keung Wong & Yves Cho Ho Cheung & Lindsay G Oades & Shengquan Sam Ye & Yat-nam Petrus Ng, 2024. "Strength-based cognitive-behavioural therapy and peer-to-peer support in the recovery process for people with schizophrenia: A randomised control trial," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 70(2), pages 364-377, March.
    5. Helen Tyrer & Leila Ali & Faye Cooper & Paula Seivewright & Paul Bassett & Peter Tyrer, 2013. "The Schedule for Evaluating Persistent Symptoms (SEPS): A new method of recording medically unexplained symptoms," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 59(3), pages 281-287, May.
    6. Field, Andy Peter Professor & Wilcox, Rand R., 2017. "Robust statistical methods: a primer for clinical psychology and experimental psychopathology researchers," OSF Preprints v3nz4, Center for Open Science.
    7. Giles Newton-Howes & Doug Banks, 2014. "The subjective experience of community treatment orders: Patients’ views and clinical correlations," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(5), pages 474-481, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:59:y:2013:i:3:p:274-280. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.