Clinical features of the borderline personality disorder.

The authors compared 18 patients diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder with 102 patients with orther diagnoses in a psychiatric emergency service. They found that 81 of 129 items obtained from the literature on borderline personality disorder were significantly more characteristic of the patients diagnosed as borderline than patients with other diagnoses. When these items were included in a Borderline Personality Scale they significantly distinguished patients diagnosed as borderline from those with other diagnoses. The patients diagnosed as borderline were not psychotic but were angry, demanding, and difficult to interview; specific histories, interpersonal relationships, defenses, and other judgments of personality functioning were also prominent characteristics of these patients. On the basis of these findings and other studies, the authors maintain that the patients diagnosed as borderline actually had a borderline personality disorder.