According to Greek-Roman mythology, Narcissus was a handsome, vain youth
who died from thirst while admiring his reflection in a
stream.FIG1
If Narcissus lived in America today, he would find a lot of Americans
competing for his place beside the stream, a new study suggests.
It found that the lifetime prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder
among American adults is 6 percent
Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern
of grandiosity, a need for admiration, a lack of empathy, and a tendency to
exploit others. But among the 10 personality disorders defined in the
DSM-IV-TR, the narcissistic one has received the least scientific
attention, Bridget Grant, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse
and Alcoholism and coworkers found. So they decided to use data derived from
the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, conducted
from 2004 to 2005, to learn more about the lifetime prevalence of the
disorder.
The survey had included a representative sample of the civilian,
noninstitutionalized adult population of the United States, 18 years of age
and older. Some 35,000 Americans were interviewed face to face with the Wave 2
Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview
Schedule—DSM-IV Version, a structured diagnostic interview
yardstick designed for use by experienced lay interviewers.
The major finding of Grant and her group—that the lifetime prevalence
of narcissistic personality disorder among American adults is 6
percent—means that "the disorder is a prevalent personality
disorder in the general American population," they wrote in their study
report, which was posted online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
on June 10.
(The estimated lifetime prevalence of some other DSM-IV
psychiatric disorders in American adults is 2 percent for obsessive-compulsive
disorder, 4 percent for bipolar disorder, 6 percent for generalized anxiety
disorder, 13 percent for alcohol abuse, and 17 percent for major depressive
disorder, according to the National Co-morbidity Survey Replication, which was
published in 2005.)
Also, the researchers came up with other interesting findings about the
life-time prevalence of the disorder as well. For example,
Why might this be so? Narcissistic men might use substances to protect a
very fragile self-esteem and to maintain a sense of omnipotence and
grandiosity, Grant and her team proposed. Such substance use, they speculated,
might then shield narcissistic men from the chronically depressed moods that
are the hallmark of dysthymia. But why narcissistic women are unlikely to
experience dysthymia is "less clear," they said.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
An abstract of "Prevalence, Correlates, Disability, and
Co-morbidity ofDSM-IVNarcissistic Personality
Disorder: Results From the Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and
Related Conditions" is posted at<http://www.psychiatrist.com/abstracts/abstracts.asp?abstract=200807/070801.htm>.▪