Borderline personality disorder diagnosis: concordance between clinical and semiestructured interview evaluation

Abstract

Background and objective. No study in Spain has analyzed the difference in frequencies of the diagnoses made based on clinical evaluation and semistructured interview in borderline personality disorder diagnosis (BPD). This present study aims to analyze diagnostic concordance in BPD patients previous diagnosed based on clinical evaluations using clinical semistructured interviews for DSM-IV axis II (SCID-II), and to analyze if there are differences in the distribution of frequencies of the psychiatry disorders in the diagnostic concordance group and the non-diagnostic concordance one.

Material and method. The study was carried out with 146 patients referred to the Borderline Personality Disorder Program of the Psychiatric Department at the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron during its first year of service. A descriptive study was designed to analyze diagnostic concordance between previous BPD clinical evaluation and semistructured interview SCID-II administered by clinical experienced interviewers.

Results. Diagnostic concordance was not observed in 30% of the final study patients. The results indicated that all the study patients presented a great number of psychiatry disorders. There were significant differences between the diagnostic concordance group and the non-diagnostic concordance one. A higher number of personality disorder (Z=3.36; p=0.01) and anxiety disorder (Z=3.04; p=0.002) was observed in the diagnostic concordance group.

Conclusions. BPD was diagnosed 30% less when using semistructured interviews than with clinical evaluations.