BPD Patients Frequently Remit but Fare Worse Than Patients With Other Personality Disorders

Remission of symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is quite common but full recovery—including good vocational functioning—is less so, and patients with BPD over time fare worse in terms of remission, recovery, and recurrence of illness than do patients with other personality disorders. Those were major findings of a longitudinal comparison of BPD and other personality disorders that appeared online on March 28 in AJP in Advance.

 Cumulative rates of remission for BPD patients ranged from 78 percent for those with an eight-year remission to 99 percent for those with a two-year remission. The corresponding rates for those with other personality disorders were 97 percent and 99 percent, respectively. Rates of recovery for borderline patients ranged from 40 percent for recoveries lasting eight years to 60 percent for recoveries lasting two years. For Axis II comparison subjects, cumulative rates of recovery ranged from 75 percent for recoveries lasting eight years to 85 percent for recoveries lasting two years.

For additional information about outcomes and treatment for patients with BPD see Psychiatric News, here and here.  To read more about BPD, see Borderline Personality Disorder: A Clinical Guide, Second Edition, from American Psychiatric Publishing.

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