Is borderline personality disorder only a mental health problem?

The objective of this multicentre study was to compare the utilization of physical health services by patients with severe BPD (n = 36) with that of two control groups: one with other personality disorders (PDs) (n = 38) and one with matched subjects randomly selected from the general population (n = 165). Information was drawn from an insurance database collected over a 5‐year period. The results showed that the BPD group had a higher mean number of medication prescriptions (377.3 vs. 97.4, p < 0.001), general medical consultations (34.4 vs. 13.2, p < 0.05) and days of medical or surgical hospitalization (10.2 vs. 1.9, p = 0.03). However, there were no significant differences between the groups with BPD and other PDs. The annual health‐care cost for each BPD patient is estimated to be 12 761 euros, of which 17.6% is due to somatic care. In the BPD group, co‐morbidity for narcissistic PD (NPD) contributed to the overall use of medications and hospitalization use. Combined with other data, this exploratory study shows that BPD is a medical burden and not just a psychiatric one. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Source: Personality and Mental Health - October 12, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Lionel Cailhol, Margot Francois, Claire Thalamas, C écile Garrido, Philippe Birmes, Laure Pourcel, Maryse Lapeyre‐Mestre, Joel Paris Tags: Research Article Source Type: research