An important advance in understanding and defining mental disorders has been the development of empirical approaches to mapping dimensions of dysfunction and their interrelatedness. Such empirical approaches have consistently observed intercorrelations among the many forms of psychopathology, leading to the identification of a general factor of psychopathology (the p factor). In this article, we review empirical support for p, including evidence for the stability and criterion validity of p. Further, we discuss the strong relationship between p and both the general factor of personality and the general factor of personality disorder, substantive interpretations of p, and the potential clinical utility of p. We posit that proposed substantive interpretations of p do not explain the full range of symptomatology typically included in p. The most plausible explanation is that p represents an index of impairment that has the potential to inform the duration and intensity of a client's mental health treatment.

中文翻译：

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精神病理学的一般因素。

理解和定义精神障碍的一个重要进展是开发了经验方法来绘制功能障碍的维度及其相互关联性。这种经验方法一致地观察到多种形式的精神病理学之间的相互关联，从而确定了精神病理学的一般因素（p 因子）。在本文中，我们回顾了对 p 的实证支持，包括 p 的稳定性和标准有效性的证据。此外，我们讨论了 p 与人格的一般因素和人格障碍的一般因素之间的密切关系、p 的实质性解释以及 p 的潜在临床效用。我们假定对 p 提出的实质性解释并不能解释 p 中通常包含的所有症状。