Exploring Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder in People With Affective Disorders: A Network Analysis

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Network Science

Background:

• Borderline personality disorder (BPD) frequently co-occurs with affective disorders like major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD).
• The network structure of BPD symptoms in individuals with affective disorders is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the network structure of BPD symptoms in individuals with affective disorders using network analysis.
• To compare the BPD symptom network structure across different affective disorder subgroups and with a control group.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Gaussian graphical model with partial correlations to analyze BPD symptoms in 1323 participants (783 with affective disorders, 540 controls).
• Assessed BPD symptoms using the Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Features Scale.
• Conducted centrality analysis (strength, closeness, betweenness) to determine symptom importance and connectivity.

Main Results:

• Identified five distinct communities of BPD symptoms.
• "Feel empty" emerged as the most central symptom across all affective disorder subgroups and the control group.
• No significant differences in network structure were found among clinical subgroups, but significant divergence was observed between clinical and control groups.

Conclusions:

• BPD symptom networks are largely comparable across MDD, BDI, and BDII subgroups.
• Structural differences in BPD symptom networks exist between individuals with affective disorders and healthy controls.
• "Feel empty" is a consistently central symptom, indicating its potential as a crucial target for clinical interventions in affective disorders.