Abstract
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most widely studied personality disorders (PDs). It recurrently shows traits of emotional lability, anxiety, separation insecurity, depressiveness, impulsiveness, risk exposure, and hostility, mainly affecting the domains of negative affectivity and antagonism. To investigate the most discriminant dimensions of the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory (Inventário Dimensional Clínico da Personalidade 2 [IDCP-2]) to distinguish people diagnosed with BPD from people without this diagnosis. A total of 305 participants were included in this study: psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with BPD (n = 30), psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with other PDs (n = 75), and a community sample (n = 200). BPD traits were assessed using the dependency, mood instability, and inconsequence dimensions of the IDCP-2. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) comparisons indicated highest mean measures in the BPD group, and mood instability factors were the most discriminant ones when considering all groups. Applying the multiple regression analysis, we found an adjusted r 2 = 0.50, and hopelessness was the most predictive measure (β = 0.32; t = 6.19; p < 0.001). We found discriminatory capacity for factors of all dimensions, although at different levels, and more consistent results to discriminate the BPD group from the community sample.
Highlights
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most widely studied personality disorders (PDs)
Sample A total of 305 participants were included in this study, divided into three groups: psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with BPD (BPD group; n = 30), aged 1956 years, consisting mainly of women (83.3%), people with white skin color (70%), and undergraduate students (73.4%); psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with other PDs (n = 75; non-BPD group), aged 1973 years (M = 41.8; SD = 13.1), composed mostly of females (76%), people with white skin color (62.7%), and undergraduate students (72%); and a community sample (n = 200), aged 19-58 years (M = 24.1; SD = 5.9), and composed mainly of women (55.5%), people with white skin color (77%), and undergraduate students (95.5%)
We applied multiple regression analysis to determine the best predictors of BPD among the three
Summary
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the most widely studied personality disorders (PDs). Within and outside clinical practice, this diagnosis has received growing visibility, causing notable and expressive harm to patients (and to those around them), who suffer with symptoms such as negative relationships, fear of abandonment, identity problems, intense impulsivity, and anger, combined with a distressing feeling of emptiness and emotional lability, often associated with self-harm and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.[1,2,3,4,5] The assessment of these behaviors and traits is not simple to operationalize, since it may involve individual particularities and comorbidities, in addition to the recognized limitations related to the diagnostic boundaries and fluctuations of BPD.[1,6,7] In a dimensional perspective, patients with BPD recurrently show traits of emotional lability, anxiety, separation insecurity, depressiveness, impulsiveness, risk exposure, and hostility, mainly affecting the negative affectivity and antagonism domains.[1,2,6,8,9] Some of these BPD features have been considered as indicators of personality impairment severity.[10,11]. Several personality dimensions could be acknowledged as pertinent to BPD; conceptually and as in line with previous studies,[13,14] we highlight the dimensions of dependency, mood instability, and inconsequence, since they include factors related to separation insecurity, oscillation and emotional vulnerability, as well as impulsiveness and extreme reactions.[16,17,18,19]
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