Both CFA and EFA results showed that the 9 DSM-IV NPD criteria loaded on 2 correlated factors. The latent class analysis results suggested a 3-class solution for NPD criteria; relevant differences in diagnostic efficiency were observed among the NPD criteria. MAMBAC and MAXCOV analyses provided consistent evidence of taxonic (ie, discrete) latent structure for NPD.
This study gave only partial support to the validity of the DSM-IV NPD construct. Taxometric analyses indicated that a typological model is appropriate for describing NPD, but CFA and EFA suggested the existence of 2 distinct—albeit correlated—clusters of narcissistic features. As a whole, the DSM-IV criteria discriminated NPD from other personality disorders, but diagnostic accuracy statistics did not replicate the rank order of diagnostic efficiency of NPD criteria proposed by the DSM-IV.