Estudio comparativo de psicoterapia de grupo para el tratamiento de pacientes con trastorno límite de la personalidad.

Nowadays, psychotherapy is regarded as the treatment of choice for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder(BPD). A consensus has yet to be reached, however, despite various controlled studies undertaken to determine the most suitable form of treatment. At both public and private mental health institutions, there is a growing number of BPD patients seeking treatment. These patients pose a challenge for institutional programs because their demands usually exceed the «therapeutic capacity» of conventional forms of psychiatric treatment. Due to this heavy demand, various strategies have been examined in order to treat this type of patients properly. These include short group therapy. This article presents the results of a controlled clinical study comparing the effectiveness of treatment according to the composition of the groups: a homogeneous group, consisting solely of borderline patients and another in which only half had been diagnosed with BPD while the others only had Axis 1 disorders, with no serious personality pathology. The study considered the variables of psychiatric symptomatology, quality of life, self-esteem, «ego strength», perceived social support, social adjustment and inter-personal problems. Both groups contained female subjects only. The quantitative results of the mixed group show significant changes in the psychiatric symptoms as well as the evolution of interpersonal problems and current quality of life. At the same time, the homogeneous group showed changes in the ideal quality of life and the self-esteem scale. A comparison of the base and final scores showed that the BPD group showed no reduction in psychiatric symptomatology, nor was there a positive evolution in inter-personal relations. At the same time, when other groups were compared, it was obvious that patients in the mixed group showed greater changes in interpersonal problems and depression, anxiety, paranoid and hostility symptoms. … [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]