The Relationship Between Maladaptive Personality and Social Role Impairment in Depressed Older Adults in Primary Care

ABSTRACT

Objective: Personality pathology is associated with impaired social functioning in adults, though further evidence is needed to examine the individual contributions of personality traits and processes to social functioning in depressed older adults. This study is a secondary analysis examining the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and processes and social role impairment in depressed older adults in primary care.

Methods: Participants (N = 56) were 77% female and ranged in age between 55–89 (M = 66.82, SD = 8.75). Personality pathology was measured by maladaptive traits (NEO-FFI) and processes (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems; IIP-PD-15). Individual variable as well as combined predictive models of social role impairment were examined.

Results: Higher neuroticism (β = 0.30, p < .05), lower agreeableness (β = −0.35 p < .001) and higher IIP-PD-15 (β = 0.28, p < .01) scores predicted greater impairment in social role functioning. A combined predictive model of neuroticism and IIP-PD-15 scores predicted unique variance in social role impairment (R² = .71).

Conclusion: These results link select personality traits and interpersonal processes to social role impairment, suggesting that these are indicators of personality pathology in older adults.

Clinical Implications: These findings lend preliminary support for clinical screening of personality pathology in depressed older adults utilizing both personality trait and process measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality
• Depression
• Older Adult
• Primary Care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under Grant MH 087562.