Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder

For a long time, borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been considered a long-lasting diagnosis with poor prediction. Studies to evaluate this assumption about BPD have however produced different results, and it has been seen that symptoms of this disease have a tendency to reduce as a person advances in age. From a study conducted, about 300 individuals who were BPD inpatients, out of eight people, only seven individuals had the expression of the disease symptoms occurring for about four years in a decade. The high degree of expression of BPD could be attributed to the different symptoms of the disease which have varying linear patterns. Studies related to borderline personality disorder were conducted in Germany, and the results indicated that BPD prevalence has indirect relations with age. BPD is high in young people, but the incidence decreases with unit increment in age. This study holds only for age because other factors such as medication were not considered.

Borderline personality disorder has two types of varying signs, which are impulsivity and affectivity. In impulsivity, the patient shows destructive actions, self-harm, and instinct actions, but these symptoms recover quickly and resolve as time progresses. Affectivity symptoms, on the other hand, are long lasting and range from depression to low states that take extended periods to settle.

Studies on borderline personality disorder were conducted in German targeting individuals between 20 and 79 years to measure diagnosis, impulsivity, and levels of depression.

In diagnosis, interviews were carried out by experienced psychologists and their research aides. In impulsivity, the NEO-FFI was used to measure five factors of personality that are extraversion, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness that are rated on a five score scale. The depression scale was used to measure depression. The Symptom Checklist-90-R measures the severity of psychiatrist conditions like depression and paranoia.
The study results showed that the prevalence of BPD was eight out of one hundred individuals, and this incidence was equal across all genders. In adolescents, however, the BPD prevalence was higher in females than in males. Results from the whole study showed that with every additional unit of age, the possibility of diagnosing BPD decreased. Adolescents have a high risk of BPD prevalence than young adults. BPD prevalence did not vary much across the whole sample that involved the young, mid-aged and old adults. In subsyndromal BPD, young adults were at a lower risk than adolescents. The diagnostic results, therefore, indicated that age has an indirect relationship with BPD prevalence that is with an increase in age, BPD incidences tend to have a downward trend and with a decrease in age BPD prevalence is on an upward trend.
During measurement of impulsivity and levels of depression, individuals were divided into groups of low and high levels of depression/impulsivity. Adolescents showed high levels of impulsivity compared to young adults who had low levels of impulsivity. In older age groups, impulsivity did not vary, and the trend was in a familiar manner. With regulated impulsivity, the symptoms of BPD are significantly reduced. The levels of depression were higher in adolescents than in young adults but high in mid and old age adults. Depression increases with an increase in age in contrast to impulsivity that is on a downward trend with every unit increase in age. Therefore, depression and impulsivity have a negative relation in BPD. High levels of depression will relate with low levels of impulsivity.
From the results of the study, factors such as medication and psychotherapy have less impact on the prevalence of BPD. This medical condition has a high prevalence in adolescents and incidence decreases with an advance in age. BPD symptoms are highly expressed at younger ages than in late years; therefore BPD traits will be on a decline as a person matures. The high prevalence of BPD in adolescents might be related to puberty when there are changes in brain development. A reduction in BPD in young adults might be associated to post puberty growth. Therefore, it is assumed that with continued age growth, BPD prevalence declines but this only depends on age and impulsivity without putting other factors into consideration. BPD incidence decreases with every unit increase in age. Borderline personality disorder has an indirect relationship with increases or decreases in age.