Core criteria for diagnosing borderline patients

This study compares 17 hospitalized borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients with 20 normal control subjects. Four criteria sets--DSM III, Grinker, Gunderson, and Kernberg--were combined and used with the semistructured DIAGNOSTIC INTERVIEW BORDERLINES (DIB) Scale. Findings indicate that among BPD patients the following were most prominent: 1) impulsive episodes 2) unstable relationships 3) chronic feelings of depressive emptiness/loneliness 4) acting out behavior and, somewhat less prevalent, 5) identity disturbance. BPD patients can be discriminated by different patterns of disturbance while sharing other features in common with them. While DSM III requires five of eight items for BPD diagnosis, from the above group significantly less than five adequately made a positive diagnosis in this study. BPD seems to identify a heterogeneous group of patients with behavioral disturbances without particular personality specificity which share certain core characteristics among which additional features may further subtype component members.