title: Etiology of borderline personality disorder: disentangling the contributions of intercorrelated antecedents.
abstract: A substantial body of research points to several variables relevant to the etiology of borderline personality disorder (BPD), notably childhood physical and sexual abuse, childhood family environment, and familial aggregation of both internalizing and externalizing disorders. However, these variables tend to be correlated, and few studies have examined them simultaneously. A national sample of randomly selected psychologists and psychiatrists described 524 adult patients with personality disorders. Family environment, parental psychopathology, and history of abuse all independently predicted BPD symptoms in multiple regression analyses. Sexual abuse contributed to the prediction of BPD symptoms over and above family environment, although family environmental factors such as instability partially mediated the effect. The results converge with recent studies using very different samples and methodologies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA.
authors.forename: Rebekah
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jenei
authors.forename: Drew
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Westen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005192:Family Health; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D015995:Prevalence; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011779:Q-Sort / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012931:Social Environment