The relationship between psychopathic traits measured by the Youth Psychopathic trait Inventory and psychopathology in a UK sample of conduct disordered boys

The Youth Psychopathy traits Inventory (YPI) is a newly developed self-report measure of psychopathy. There are no studies looking at the validity of this measure in UK samples. We assessed 115 male adolescents (mean age 16.22 years) with DSM-IV conduct disorder on a range of measures including the YPI, Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and the Impulsivity-Venturesomeness-Empathy Questionnaire (IVE). The YPI had showed the expected positive correlations with aggression, delinquency and impulsivity. The YPI was able to identify a “psychopathic-like” subgroup with higher impulsive/aggressive and delinquent scores and lower empathy. The YPI may be of value as a screening tool for cases that require further assessment and evaluation using interview based measures of psychopathic traits.