Clinical Research Directory

Empathy Anomalies in Emotionally Unstable (Borderline) Personality Disorder

Sponsor: University of Edinburgh

Summary

Emotionally unstable (borderline) personality disorder (BPD) is characterised by changeable and extreme emotions and difficulty maintaining relationships. It is often associated with self-harm. Empathy has two components; cognitive empathy (imagining someone else's thoughts and feelings) and emotional empathy (the reciprocal emotional response). People with BPD score low on cognitive empathy but high on emotional empathy. This suggests that they do not easily understand other peoples' perspectives, but their own emotions are very sensitive. This is important because it could align BPD with other neurodiverse conditions. This study will use a computer-based empathy test and short questionnaires to investigate whether empathy changes during the course of BPD, and if the severity of empathy impairments correlate with severity. The tests are the multifaceted empathy test (MET) and the questionnaire of cognitive and affective empathy (QCAE). The MET requires participants to look at photographs of emotive faces, then choose the most appropriate adjective. It takes 30 minutes to complete. The QCAE asks 31 questions like 'it is hard for me to see why some things upset people'. Participants will be invited to join the study when they are diagnosed with BPD. Severity will be measured with the Borderline Symptom List 23, a disability questionnaire, and the number of self-harming episodes per month, the number of hospital assessments per month and the number of hospital admissions per month. Short NHS questionnaires of anxiety, depression and mood will also be completed, along with short reading test. About 30 participants will be assessed 4 times over 2 years.

Official title: Empathy Anomalies in Emotionally Unstable (Borderline) Personality Disorder - Prospective, Longitudinal, Cohort Study

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