Saulsman and Page's (2004) meta-analysis examined the relationship between the domains of the FFM and the DSM personality disorders. The current meta-analysis replicated their findings at the domain level using 18, newly obtained, independent samples. The similarity between the findings from Saulsman and Page (2005) and the current meta-analysis suggest that their findings are robust and lend further confirmation to their conclusion that each of the DSM personality disorders shows meaningful and unique relationships to the domains of the FFM. The novel contribution of the current study was that it also extended their work to the level of the 30 facets of the FFM as assessed by the NEO PI-R, SIFFM, and FFMRF and again provided support (with some notable exceptions) for an empirical relationship between the DSM-IV-TR personality disorders and the FFM that was consistent with theoretical expectations. It is at the lower facet level of the trait hierarchy that an adequate understanding and description of personality disorders will be obtained (Clark, 2007; Widiger & Simonsen, 2005) and, as suggested by Saulsman and Page (2004), the facet level descriptions do appear to provide a more vivid and useful description than is available from a domain level analysis.
