Obesity and borderline personality symptomatology: Comparison of a psychiatric versus primary care sample

This study explores the relationship between obesity and borderline personality symptomatology in two clinical settings: a psychiatric vs primary care setting. The body mass indices (BMI) of 48 women from a psychiatric outpatient setting and 83 women from a primary care setting were calculated. Each participant completed the borderline personality scale of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised (PDQ-R). While BMI and PDQ-R were moderately related in the psychiatric sample (r = 0.43, P < 0.01), there was a lack of association between these variables in the primary care sample (r = 0.04, P > 0.05). In conclusion, women's increasing body weight appears to have some degree of correlation to borderline personality symptomatology among psychiatric patients, whereas it apparently does not among primary care patients.