Asian Journal of Psychiatry 7 (2014) 101–102

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Letter to Editor Risk of personality disorder in students of business administration Sir, Relevance of understanding personality profile of administrators is immense. Assessment of attitude and personality factors in the prospective employees especially those with management role are not new; however, there is hardly any information on the prevalence of dysfunctional personality traits or risk of personality disorder (PD) in students pursuing courses for business administration in the Academy of Management Studies, Bhubaneswar, 111 India. In the above background, we screened all the 62 students of Masters in Business Administration (MBA) course in a batch using the Standardized Assessment of Personality – Abbreviated Scale (SAPAS). It is a validated brief screening questionnaire which could be used to identify individuals at risk of PD (Moran et al., 2003). It consists of eight dichotomously rated items; and a score of 3 identifies the presence of PD in 90% of participants. The sensitivity and specificity were 0.94 and 0.85 respectively. We evaluated their current psychological health status by General Health Questionnaire – 12 (GHQ-12) (Goldberg and Williams, 1988). We also checked the quality of life (QOL) of the participants using a scale of zero to ten (‘‘IGDA. 7,’’ 2003). The informed consent was obtained. The project was considered as a non-interventional survey and was approved by the institutional ethics committee. It was evident from the results that majority of students were male (61.3%), from middle socioeconomic background (90.3%), and a considerable proportion (41.9%) reported financial problems. There were 24 (38.7%) students with a risk of PD (SAPAS score 3 or more). The distribution of sociodemographic variables in the two groups with or without the risk of PD was not significant. Occurrence of SAPAS items in the two groups, GHQ and QOL scores are given in Table 1. Although the students at risk of PD had higher GHQ score compared to those without, this was not statistically significant. QOL scores of both groups were also not different.

The distribution of responses to various items of SAPAS suggested no significant differences between the genders. There was no correlation between SAPAS total with GHQ score or QOL; however the GHQ and QOL scores were negatively correlated (Pearson correlation: 0.372; p < 0.01). Comparison of those with or without the risk of PD revealed that there was no difference in the distribution of any physical illnesses, smoking, drinking, drug use, physical exercise, or type of hobbies. The review of the results of this pilot study suggested that a sizable proportion of management students were positive following screening by SAPAS suggesting probable risk of PD. While in clinical population a score of 3 in SAPAS can identify the presence of DSM-IV PD in 90% of participants (Moran et al., 2003); in the non-clinical population such as this, the prevalence would be probably lower. Nonetheless, it is interesting to observe that such a high proportion of administration students were screen positive. The figures of those at risk of having PD at the screening were higher than those reported for the prevalence of PD in college students (Chabrol et al., 2002; Qi et al., 2009), and in general population (Reich et al., 1989), which is expected. Results of this study should be evaluated in the background of a few limitations. The SAPAS has been validated in clinical population, it may not be suitable for use in populations where the prevalence of PD is lower (Moran et al., 2003). There is lack of a comparison group; it would be essential to compare the findings with students of different subjects and other nonclinical population. These may need to be replicated on larger samples. In conclusion, considering the proportion of students studying business administration that was found to be screen positive for personality disorder, it would be sensible to evaluate personality further through structured assessments in this population in view of their job role.

Table 1 Personality, psychological distress and quality of life of MBA students.

SAPAS items 1. Difficulty in making and keeping friends 2. Normally describes self as a loner 3. No trust in other people generally 4. Normally loses temper easily 5. Normally an impulsive sort of person 6. Normally a worrier 7. Depends on others a lot generally 8. Generally a perfectionist GHQ score  SD Quality of life: mean  SD PD: personality disorder; SD: standard deviation. 1876-2018/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2013.09.004

No risk of PD

Risk of PD

(n = 38)

(n = 24)

7.9 7.9 13.2 26.3 13.2 15.8 10.5 47.4 9.7  5.2 6.87  1.2

37.5 45.8 41.7 62.5 54.2 66.7 41.7 62.5 12.2  6.7 6.75  1.2

p

Risk of personality disorder in students of business administration.

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