A Comparative Study of Executive Functions and Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and Normal Individuals

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the cognitive disorders, processing emotional stimulants and mental reaction in patients with borderline personality disorder and normal individuals. The study was descriptive and scientific-comparative. The study population included all patients with borderline personality disorder who were referred to psychiatric clinics in Tabriz. Among this population, 50 patients with borderline personality disorder were matched with 50 healthy individuals from the general population of the city, who had no history of mental illness, and their demographic variables such as age, sex, educational level and marital status. They were selected by a random sampling technique and had completed the questionnaires on cognitive emotion regulation, mental reaction and the Wisconsin Card Test. In order to analyze the data, the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed with SPSS version 20. Results showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups in preservation error and total error components, as well as the positive and negative components of cognitive regulation, and also in mental reaction (p < 0.001). According to the findings, it can be said that better and more complete understanding of personality disorders, particularly borderline personality disorder, provides more effective and more specialized intervention in the treatment and prevention of recurrence in patients with this disorder.