THE TREATMENT OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER PATIENTS WITH CURRENT SUICIDAL BEHAVIOUR

Object: Review the clinical and research evidence regarding the relationship and treatment of Borderline personality disorder patients (BPD) with current suicidal behaviour. Method: A Psych. Inf., Medline and manual search to identify and select relevant scientific clinical and research-based articles on the subject was conducted. Results: Suicidal behaviour is an essential complication of Borderline personality disorder (BPD). Despite evidence of fair long-term outcome of BPD, the public health burden of BPD is closely related to suicidal behavior. Therefore, after focusing on the treatment of the personality disorder, recently much of research efforts regarding the treatment of BPD have been focused on the management of self destructive behaviour. Studies indicated that both dialectical behaviour therapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are beneficial to psychiatric patients with BPD and self-damaging behaviour. Additionally the beneficial role of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for symptoms of affective dysregulation and impulsivity has been well documented and during the last decade there was also a growing interest on outpatient crisis intervention for patient with personality disorder. Conclusions: To respond to the present need for cost-effective, simple to generalize acute treatment, combined (psychosocial and psychopharmacological) crisis strategies may be relevant to better outcome in psychiatric subjects with BPD and acute suicidal behaviour.