GENETIC COVARIANCE STRUCTURE OF THE FOUR MAIN FEATURES OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

The patient population of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is het-erogeneous; many different combinations of BPD symptoms can lead to a BPD diagnosis. We investigated to what extent the covariance among four main components of BPD is explained by shared genetic and envi-ronmental factors. Using an extended twin design, multivariate genetic models were applied to the scales of the PAI-BOR, a self-report ques-tionnaire tapping four main features of BPD (affective instability, iden-tity problems, negative relationships, and self-harm). Data on the four BPD scales were available for 5,533 twins and 1,202 siblings from th