Investigation of the clinical functioning of the Attention Seeking of the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical functioning of one of the dimensions of the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory (IDCP), Attention Seeking, and to establish a cutoff considering the diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder, whose pathological characteristics are directly related to this dimension. The IDCP was applied to 1954 participants (62.20% women), between 18 and 90 years (M = 29.30, SD = 11.38), divided into three groups: patients with histrionic personality disorders (n = 14), patients with other personality disorders (n = 168), and those without diagnoses (n = 1772). The parameters of items and persons were estimated by the rating scale model, and reliability measures were generated, as well as the item-person map and map of items, ANOVA for comparison between groups, and ROC curve. The results suggest suitability of the Attention Seek dimension in clinical functioning; however, problems that seem inherent to the histrionic personality disorder were reflected in the setting of the dimension.