Comparison of Borderline Personality Disorder Patients' Emotion Regulation, Mindfulness, and Self-compassion with Healthy Individuals

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Clinical Psychology, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) experience extreme mood swings, unstable relationships, and difficulty controlling emotions. The present study investigated the comparison of emotion regulation, mindfulness, and self-compassion with healthy individuals.
Method: The present study was conducted by using a causal-comparative research design. A 149 convenience sample of the adolescent general population was recruited in the healthy group with no known psychiatric disorders and BPD via psychiatrists and clinical psychologists by utilizing snowball sampling in the year 2021-2022 in Tehran. Participants were recruited with age, gender, and education matched healthy control. The research tools included the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS). A MANOVA and an ANOVA test were performed to analyze the data using SPSS version 25 with a two-tailed 5% level of significance. 
Results: The findings showed that the mean scores of emotion regulation (34.44±5.86), mindfulness (96.47±14.79), and self-compassion (71.30±9.08) were lower in the group with borderline personality disorder compared to emotion regulation (48.54±7.33), mindfulness (136.74±13.41), and self-compassion (91.50±10.81) of the healthy group. In this study, a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. 
Conclusion: BPD patients reported poor emotion regulation, mindfulness, and compassion compared to a healthy control group. To these results, we suggest that teaching emotion regulation skills, mindfulness, and self-compassion to BPD patients can be crucial in the treatment of BPD.

Keywords

References

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International Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Volume 17, Issue 1
May 2023
Pages 32-37

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