Borderline personality and substance use in women

Abstract

The association between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and substance use disorder (SUD) was examined in a predominantly psychiatric (77.6%) sample of 232 women. BPD proved to be a significant predictor of a lifetime diagnosis of SUD across four different categories: any SUD (including alcohol); alcohol use; drug use; and heroin, cocaine, or poly-substance use. BPD continued to be a predictor of SUD even when the effects of other cluster B and all cluster C PDs were controlled statistically. Antisocial personality disorder generally yielded larger odds ratios than BPD and emerged as a partial mediator of the relation between BPD and SUD. Histrionic PD was the only other PD that showed meaningful relations with SUD.