Table 2.

Percentages of Participants Who Exhibited Significant Individual-Level Change in Externalizing Disorder Symptoms From Age 17 to 24

					Individual-level change		Sex differences
Disorder	n	Decrease	Stable	Increase	χ2(2, N =)	p	χ2(2, N =)	p
Adult antisocial behavior
Men	494	6.1	78.1	15.8	63.2	<.001	56.4	<.001
Women	520	3.1	93.8	3.1	0.7	>.10
Alcohol dependence
Men	538	3.5	64.9	31.6	165.1	<.001	80.5	<.001
Women	646	5.9	83.4	10.7	46.5	<.001
Nicotine dependence
Men	538	2.2	69.7	28.1	136.0	<.001	9.0	<.05
Women	646	4.0	74.5	21.5	115.7	<.001
Drug dependence
Men	538	2.0	84.4	13.6	44.6	<.001	15.9	<.001
Women	646	2.3	91.0	6.7	12.8	<.01

Note. For the substance use disorders, the reliable change index, which corresponds to a change of two symptoms, was used to determine the percentage of individuals who increased, decreased, or remained stable. For adult antisocial behavior, a change of two symptoms was also necessary to be considered significant individual-level change. The chi-square test for individual-level change tested whether the observed distribution in the sample differed from the expected distribution (2.5% decrease, 95.0% stable, 2.5% increase) if change were completely random. The chi-square test for sex differences tested whether the distribution of persons who changed or remained stable was the same for men and women.