Rate of Personality Disorders in a Sample of Egyptian Students from Ain Shams University

Abstract Background An individual is considered to have a personality disorder (PD) when his or her thoughts, emotional manifestations, impulsiveness, and interpersonal behaviour deviate markedly from the expectations of that individual’s culture. Between 6 % and 10 % of the global population is estimated to suffer from a PD. Aim of the Work Estimation rate of personality disorders among students of Ain Shams University, compare between rate of personality disorders among medical, literary students. Patients and Methods This study is a comparative, cross sectional study, the sample was selected from students of Ain Shams University. This study was started after approval of the protocol by the department of Neuropsychiatry as well as Ethics Committee till accomplishment of the number of the subjects. Results There was significant difference between medical group and literature group according to socioeconomic level and academic “years”. This could be explained due to cultural preferences as higher socioeconomic level families are more able to withstand the cost of education in medical colleges. Regarding significance in academic years this could be simply due to longer faculty years in medical colleges (5 and 6 years) compared to literature colleges (only 4 years). Among the two groups, the rate of personality disorder was 26 students (10.4%). The most common personality disorder was obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (7 students) followed by depressive personality disorder (6 students) then dependent and narcissistic personality disorders (3 students each). There was no significant difference between medical group and literature group regarding personality disorders. Comorbid psychiatric disorders were evident in 26 students (10.4%). Of these students, dysthymic disorder was the most common (6 students, 23.1%) followed by depression and GAD (3 students each, 11.5%). There was no statistically significant difference between medical group and literature group according to comorbid psychiatric disorder. Conclusion This study was conducted to assess rate of PDs among Egyptian university students. The rate of PD was 10.4%, as the most common PD was obsessive-compulsive PD followed by depressive PD. Comorbid psychiatric disorders were evident in 10.4% of students. Of these students, dysthymic disorder was the most common (23.1%) followed by depression and GAD (11.5%). Moreover, there was significant association between presence of PDs and troubles in school and the most significant predictors of PD were comorbid psychiatric disorder.