Antisocial behavioral syndromes among residential drug abuse treatment clients

We compared residential addictions treatment clients meeting full criteria for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD +) with those reporting syndromal levels of antisocial behavior only in adulthood (AABS +) on demographics, antisocial symptomatology, drug history, axis I comorbidity and characteristics of index treatment episode. We examined these issues in the sample as a whole, as well as separately in male and female respondents. Among both men and women, ASPD + initiated their antisocial behavior earlier, met more ASPD criteria and endorsed more violent symptoms, than AABS +. Male ASPD + also met criteria for more lifetime axis I diagnoses and reported more years of drug involvement than male AABS c. Trends were observed toward poorer retention in treatment among ASPD + than among AABS + participants of both genders randomized to a planned duration of 180 days, but retention did not differ between ASPD + and AABS + randomized to a planned duration of 90 days. Our findings, which replicate and extend previously published results, carry potential implications for treatment programming and for the nosology of ASPD. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.