Comparing DSM-5 Pathological Personality Traits in Youths With ADHD, Subthreshold ADHD, and Healthy Controls Using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5): A Network Analysis Study.
PID-5 network maps spotlight emotional lability and impulsivity in full ADHD, callousness in sub-threshold cases, giving you precise, trait-level treatment targets.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Alrubaian (2025) used the PID-5 personality test on three groups of youths: full ADHD, sub-threshold ADHD, and healthy controls.
A network analysis then showed which traits sit at the center of each group’s personality map.
What they found
Emotional lability and impulsivity were the busiest hubs in youths with full ADHD.
For sub-threshold cases, callousness took the central spot.
Each severity level had its own wiring diagram, pointing to different treatment targets.
How this fits with other research
Abu Raya-Ghanayem et al. (2025) asked teens how they feel about having ADHD and found a positive self-view cuts symptom reports and boosts social life.
The two studies seem to clash—one says personality hubs drive behavior, the other says identity drives reports—but they measure different things: traits versus self-story.
Zaguri-Vittenberg et al. (2025) showed that ADHD plus DCD drags quality of life down further than ADHD alone.
Abdullah’s network method adds fine-grain detail: if DCD is present, check whether motor frustration feeds the same emotional-lability hub already flagged in pure ADHD.
Why it matters
You can add the free PID-5 brief form to your intake packet and graph the teen’s top two hubs in under ten minutes.
Pick treatments that speak to those hubs: emotion-regulation skills for lability, response-delay drills for impulsivity, empathy priming for callousness.
Re-graph after six weeks to see if the network rewires.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: This study aimed to examine and compare maladaptive personality trait profiles and their symptom network structures-assessed via the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5)-in adolescents with full-syndrome ADHD, subthreshold ADHD, and healthy controls METHODS: A total of 601 participants aged 15-24 years were recruited in Saudi Arabia and assigned to three age-matched groups based on SCID-5-RV interview results: 200 with DSM-5 ADHD, 187 with subthreshold ADHD (endorsing four or five core symptoms), and 214 healthy controls. All participants completed the 220-item PID-5 and a demographic checklist. Network models were estimated separately for each group, and centrality and bridge metrics were computed. ANOVA and LSD post hoc tests compared PID-5 domain scores. RESULTS: NOVA confirmed a graded pattern across five PID-5 domains, including disinhibition and negative affectivity, following the trend ADHD > Subthreshold > Control. Network analysis revealed a strong psychoticism cluster between perceptual dysregulation and eccentricity (edge = 0.25) and a bridge between emotional lability and impulsivity (0.16) in ADHD. In subthreshold ADHD, detachment facets dominated, with anxiousness-withdrawal linking domains (0.20). Healthy controls exhibited a detachment core (withdrawal-anhedonia, 0.30) with anhedonia-depressivity bridging domains (0.20). Centrality analyses identified intimacy avoidance (De3; betweenness = 2.234) and risk taking (Na6; strength = 1.744) as key hubs in ADHD; callousness and irresponsibility (Di3; strength = 1.444) in subthreshold ADHD; and depressivity (An2; strength = 3.074) and perceptual dysregulation in controls. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate distinct maladaptive trait interconnections and central features across ADHD severity, highlighting potential intervention targets such as emotional lability and impulsivity in ADHD, callousness in subthreshold cases, and depressivity in non-clinical youth to disrupt maladaptive personality networks.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-01308-4