BPD Research Project

For the 2020 Celebration of Excellence in Research and Creative Activity (CERCA) event I collaborated with another student in researching Borderline-Personality disorder symptoms in college students. While I was not able to present this research in person, I was fortunate enough to be able to share my findings online through a university website. My research partner and I pulled this data from a past study Dr. Muehlenkamp oversaw several years prior. I decided to run analysis of students with BPD symptoms engaging in self-destructive behavior, as this fit into my interest in severe and persistent mental illnesses.

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Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD is described as chronic instability in one’s personality, and often includes engagement in self-destructive behaviors.The purpose of this study was to replicate previous findings suggesting that students with Borderline Personality Disorder will engage in more self-destructive behavior than those without the disorder and to examine possible sex differences. We hypothesized that students with BPD symptoms will engage in more self-destructive behavior than those without BPD symptoms, and that males would be more likely to report drug/alcohol abuse than females who would report more self-harm. Our data was collected via an online survey where 1,777 students responded to a set of questions assessing BPD symptoms, frequency of non-suicidal self-injury, drug use, alcohol use, and lifetime suicide attempts. We conducted a multivariate analysis of variance (MANVOA) with follow-upANOVAs,  and observed significant differences in the level of engagement in self-destructive behaviors between students reporting BPD symptoms and those without symptoms. Consistent with prior research, students with BPD symptoms reported more substance use, alcohol use, frequent NSSI, and suicide attempts. We also found a significant difference between males and females, where males reported more alcohol and drug use than females, regardless of their level of BPD symptoms. These results support our hypotheses as well as past research. What this research shows is that college students with higher BPD symptoms are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors in general, and that there are important sex differences in what self-destructive behaviors occur. This information could be useful for universities and counseling centers to adjust their approach to prevention or intervention to better assist college students with BPD symptoms and lower self-destructive behavior among students.

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