Frequency of binge eating behavior in patients with borderline personality disorder and its relation to emotional regulation and impulsivity.

Abstract

Eating disorders are common among patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), contributing to their lack of treatment response and bad prognosis. In this context, it is helpful to examine the relevance of eating behavior and to understand whether borderline traits are higher in those individuals. In this study, a sample of patients with BPD screened to determine the frequency of binge eating (BE) behaviors and its relation to impulsivity and emotional dysregulation. Seventy participants aged 25.81 ± 6.34years were recruited from Okasha Institute of psychiatry, Cairo, Egypt. Diagnosed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II disorders (SCID-II), assessed for impulsivity, emotion regulation using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and the Trait Meta Mood Scale (TMMS), respectively, and screened for BE behaviors by Binge Eating Scale. All of the participants had medium emotional regulation propensity 82.63 ± 10.81 and showed variable degrees of impulsivity, mainly moderate 42 (60%). More than half of the participants had BE behavior 37 (~ 53%), with a significant negative correlation with clarity of feeling, total score of TMMS, and age. Similarly, on comparing the participant with binging versus no binging group, a significant relation between BE behavior, fear of abandonment (p value 0.02), clarity of feeling, and total score of TMMS was found. However, no significant relation between BE behavior & impulsivity demonstrated. A substantial number of patients with BPD suffering from BE, showing relation between binging, emotion dysregulation, and fear of abandonment. III, evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies.