A Comparison of Body Dysmorphic Disorder in Students with Narcissistic, Histionic Personality Patterns and Normal People

People with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) have been hypothesized to have schizoid, narcissistic, and obsessional identity characteristics and to be touchy, independent, perfectionistic, and unreliable. Thus, the present study compared BDD in students with narcissistic, histrionic, and normal personality patterns.

The research method was causal-comparative and cross-sectional. The statistical population of the study included all the students of Ardabil Azad University in the second semester of the 2014-2015 academic year. Using the random cluster method, 600 students were selected and completed the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-34; Cooper et al., 1987), and the narcissistic and histrionic subscales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III)‎. The collected data were analyzed using univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) in SPSS software.

The results showed that there was a significant difference in BDD score between students with narcissistic, histrionic, and normal personality patterns, and the mean BDD scores in the two groups of students with narcissistic and histrionic personality patterns were higher than that in those with normal personality patterns ‎(P < 0.001).

It can be stated that these components are among the important influencing variables in personality patterns, so it is necessary to pay attention to these components in the prevention and successful treatment of the affected people.