title: Registered prevalence of borderline personality disorder in primary care databases.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common personality disorder, with a population prevalence of 1.4-5.9%, although the epidemiology of this disorder in primary care is insufficiently known. Our objective was to determine the registered prevalence of BPD in primary care databases and to study the demographic and clinical characteristics of these patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed a cross-sectional study of the computerized databases of primary care clinical records. The target population consisted of all adults (≥ 16 years old) registered in the Catalan Health Institute (n = 4,764,729).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of recorded BPD was 0.017%, and was higher in patients with other mental disorders, particularly substance-abuse disorders (0.161%). These patients had twice as many appointments with the general practitioner as the general population (8.1 vs. 4.4).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The number of diagnoses of BPD recorded in primary care is extremely low, which contrasts with the available population-based data.
authors.affiliation: Research Unit, Tarragona-Reus Primary Care Area, Catalan Health Institute, Tarragona, Spain. earagones.tarte.ics@gencat.cat
authors.forename: Enric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aragonès
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Salvador-Carulla
authors.forename: Judit
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: López-Muntaner
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrer
authors.forename: Josep Lluís
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Piñol
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care; D055815:Young Adult