Borderline Personality Disorder and Disordered Eating Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Rejection Sensitivity.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between disordered eating behaviour and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in a clinical population of adolescent girls. We hypothesized that BPD and disordered eating would be strongly associated and that this association would be partially mediated by rejection sensitivity. METHOD: Participants were 73 female patients aged 11-18 presenting for mental health treatment at an outpatient psychiatry clinic in a large metropolitan hospital. Measures used in this study include the Diagnostic Interview for Borderline Personality Disorder-Revised, Borderline Personality Questionnaire and The Short Screen for Eating Disorders. RESULTS: Youth with BPD had significantly more disordered eating behaviour compared to controls. Of the nine facets of BPD, eight were highly correlated with disordered eating, suggesting important shared variance between the constructs of BPD and disordered eating. This study also demonstrated that rejection sensitivity significantly mediated the relationship between BPD symptoms and disordered eating. CONCLUSIONS: This paper provides a novel association between a diagnosis of BPD in adolescents and disordered eating and the mediation effect of rejection sensitivity. These findings suggest that disordered eating should be screened in BPD samples and interventions targeting rejection sensitivity may be of clinical use.