Prevalence of and Risk Factors Associated with Psychopathological Symptoms in Uruguayan Adolescents, Using the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI-A)

Abstract

This work describes the distribution of psychopathological indicators and their clinical levels in Uruguayan high school adolescents by gender, age, and socioeconomic level of the participants. The proportion of cases with indicators at comorbid clinical levels is also estimated. We evaluated 540 adolescent students of both genders (55.5% female), aged 12 to 18 years (M=15.40; SD=1.92) of five departments of Uruguay, using the Personality Assessment Inventory-Adolescent (PAI-A; Morey, 2007). In many of the PAI-A scales, significant differences were recorded in the mean scores by gender, age, and socioeconomic status. A third of the adolescents presented significant levels on one or more clinical scales, the most frequent being depression, anxiety and somatizations, and the least prevalent, antagonistic traits. The adolescents with higher scores on the PAI-A scales were female, younger and with a lower socioeconomic level.