Resumen de Volitional determinants of self-harm behaviour and suicidal risk in persons with borderline personality disorder

S. Blasczyk Schiep, M. Kazen, P. Jaworska Andryszewska, J. Kuhl

• Background and objectives: We investigated differential mediators of the risk of suicidal behaviour and self-harm behaviour in a group of sixty-four patients with borderline personality disorder.

  Methods: The study included an interview to assess suicidal attempts, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), volitional competences and self-regulation (VCQ), depression (BDI) and self-harm (SH) behaviour. We postulated two different serial multiple mediation models originating in emotional neglect in childhood, one leading to suicide attempts (through threatrelated state orientation and depression) and the other leading to self-harm behaviour (through prospective state orientation and demand-related stress).

  Results: The serial multiple mediation models were confirmed, with the postulated variables serving as partial mediators of suicide attempts and of self-harm behaviour. In addition to emotional neglect, there were two additional predictors: Sexual abuse in childhood (for suicide attempts) and physical abuse in childhood (for self-harm behaviour).

  Conclusions: The results highlight the critical importance of experiences of emotional neglect and other forms of abuse in childhood for the development of pathology in BPD patients. These early experiences of neglect promote deficits in self-regulation of emotion (state orientation), which together with depression or demanding circumstances, lead to an increase in the risk of suicide, or in self-harm behaviour, respectively.

  © 2017 Asociacion´ Universitaria de Zaragoza para el Progreso de la Psiquiatr´ıa y la Salud Mental.

  Published by Elsevier Espana, ˜ S.L.U. All rights reserved