title: Borderline personality traits in nonclinical young adults.
abstract: The main purpose of this study was to explore the dimensionality of the borderline personality disorder in nonclinical young adults by means of the Borderline Personality Questionnaire (BPQ; Poreh et al., 2006). We also studied the phenotypic expression of the borderline personality traits as a function of participants' gender and age, and the relationship between BPQ subscales and measures of depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, hallucinatory predisposition, and paranoid ideation. The sample comprised 809 young adults, 562 (69.5%) were women, with a mean age of 20.2 years (SD = 2.9). The results indicate that the BPQ self-report has adequate psychometric properties. The levels of internal consistency for the BPQ subscales ranged between .78 and .93. Analysis of the internal structure of the BPQ subscales yielded a one-dimensional solution. In contrast, second-order principal components analysis at the item level yielded a five-dimensional solution. Likewise, statistically significant differences in the mean scores of the borderline personality traits as a function of participants' gender and age were found. The BPQ subscales correlated significantly with measures of depression, anxiety, stress, paranoid ideation, and hallucinatory predisposition. These results help to improve our understanding of the dimensional structure of the borderline personality in the general population. Future research should continue to identify participants who are at risk for the development of borderline personality disorder and facilitating the development of early detection and prevention programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology. University of Oviedo, Spain. efonseca@cop.es
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fonseca-Pedrero
authors.forename: Mercedes
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paino
authors.forename: Serafín
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lemos-Giráldez
authors.forename: Susana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sierra-Baigrie
authors.forename: Maria Paz García-Portilla
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: González
authors.forename: Julio
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bobes
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Muňiz
mesh_terms: D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015897:Comorbidity; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult