Comparison of Schizotypal Personality Characteristics among Addicted and Non-addicted Prisoners in Zarrin Shahr Prison, Iran

Personality disorders may affect people's tendency to addiction. The purpose of this study was to compare the schizotypal personality characteristics between addicted and non-addicted people in Zarrin Shahr prison, Iran. A total of 145 prisoners in Zarrin Shahr prison were selected using census method, and responded to the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) questionnaire. This questionnaire includes five factors of cognitive disorganization, impulsive nonconformity, unusual experiences/magical thinking, tendency to isolation, and introversive anhedonia. Data were analyzed using Student’s t and Man-Whitney U tests via SPSS software. Based on the Student’s t test, considering schizotypal personality characteristics, there was a significant difference between the prisoners with positive and negative addiction test results (t = 3.06; P < 0.05). There were also significant differences in the dimensions of cognitive disorganization, impulsive nonconformity, unusual experiences/magical thinking, and tendency to isolation (P < 0.050 for all), but in the introversive anhedonia dimension, there was no difference between the two groups (P > 0.05). The results of Man-Whitney U test confirmed the above findings. The tendency to addiction is not affected by one factor, and it is necessary that the experts of the field of addiction, consider environmental, social, and psychological factors of addiction simultaneously in order to act more effectively