The overlap between autistic spectrum conditions and borderline personality disorder

Both people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are significantly challenged in terms of understanding and responding to emotions and in interpersonal functioning. To compare ASC, BPD, and comorbid patients in terms of autistic traits, empathy, and systemi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2017-09, Vol.12 (9), p.e0184447-e0184447
Main Authors: Dudas, Robert B, Lovejoy, Chris, Cassidy, Sarah, Allison, Carrie, Smith, Paula, Baron-Cohen, Simon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorder - diagnosis
Autism Spectrum Disorder - psychology
Biology and Life Sciences
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder - diagnosis
Borderline Personality Disorder - psychology
Cognition & reasoning
Comorbidity
Diagnosis, Differential
Emotions
Empathy
Female
Humans
Male
Medical diagnosis
Medicine and Health Sciences
Middle Aged
Normal distribution
Patients
Personality
Personality disorders
Personality traits
Physical Sciences
Psychiatrists
Psychiatry
Psychological Tests
Quantitative Trait, Heritable
Research and Analysis Methods
Social Sciences
Studies
Young Adult
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Summary:Both people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are significantly challenged in terms of understanding and responding to emotions and in interpersonal functioning. To compare ASC, BPD, and comorbid patients in terms of autistic traits, empathy, and systemizing. 624 ASC, 23 BPD, and 16 comorbid (ASC+BPD) patients, and 2,081 neurotypical controls (NC) filled in the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Systemizing Quotient-Revised (SQ-R). On the AQ, the comorbid group scored higher than the ASC group, who in turn scored higher than the BPD group, who scored higher than controls. On the EQ, we found the comorbid and ASC groups scored lower than the BPD group, who were not different from controls. Finally, on the SQ-R, we found the ASC and BPD group both scored higher than controls. Similar to ASC, BPD patients have elevated autistic traits and a strong drive to systemize, suggesting an overlap between BPD and ASC.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0184447