Maladaptive personality traits in patients identified at lower-risk and higher-risk for psychosis

•Examined maladaptive personality traits in those who are `at-risk’ for psychosis.•High Negative Affectivity and Detachment are evident in higher-risk patients.•Maladaptive personality traits may be a risk factor for conversion to psychosis. The ‘at-risk’ state for psychosis is a high-risk paradigm that examines factors that contribute to conversion to a first episode of psychosis. Although a multitude of contributing factors have been identified in one's susceptibility to conversion to psychosis, dimensional pathological personality traits have not been examined in ‘at-risk’ populations. In this study we examine lower- versus higher-risk for psychosis using traits from the DSM-5 Alternative Dimensional Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) to investigate which AMPD personality traits distinguish those ‘at-risk’ patients at relatively lower-risk for conversion to psychosis versus those at higher-risk. Remitted schizophrenic patients served as the comparison group. MANOVA analyses revealed significant group differences on the PID-5, with the higher-risk patients scoring higher on two of the five AMPD trait domains – Negative Affectivity and Detachment – compared to lower-risk patients. Maladaptive personality traits from the AMPD may serve as potential risk factor for conversion to psychosis.