Comparison of gender roles in male and female in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) with control group and it’s correlation with severity of clinical symptoms

Abstract

Introduction: The objective of this research was to comparethe gender masculine and the gender feminine rolesin patients with borderline personality disorder and controlgroup. This study was aimed to determine the correlationcoefficient of the gender masculine and the gender feminineroles with severity of borderline personality disorder.Methods: In this case-control study, 17 males and 25 femaleswith borderline personality disorder, and 22 malesand 18 females in control group were examined. To evaluatethe sex roles, the Bem sex role inventory (BSRI) andthe gender masculine (GF) and gender feminine (GF) rolesderived from the Minnesota Multi-Stage Personality Inventory(MMPI-2) were used. The borderline personalitydisorder and its severity were diagnosed using a semistructuredclinical interview based on DSM-IV for personalitydisorders (SCID-II). Pearson correlation coefficientand variance analysis were used to analyze the findings.Results: According to GM inventory, no significant differencewas found between the male patients and controlgroup subjects. No significant difference was foundbetween female patients and control group subjects andbetween male patients and two groups of women. Basedon the GF inventory, the femininity of male and femalepatients and control group of men was less than that ofcontrol group of women. Based on BSRI, gender masculinetraits score was significantly higher in men and womenwith borderline personality disorder than those in controlgroup of men and control group of women. In gender femininetrait score, control group of women obtained higherscores than both of control group of men and men withborderline personality disorder. There was no significantdifference between control group of women and womenwith borderline personality disorder. There was a significantcorrelation between the severity of borderline personalitydisorder in women and gender masculine trait score basedon the Bem sex roles index (BSRI) (r=0.410, p=0.042).Conclusion: Men with borderline personality disorder hadmore masculinity than control group of men, althoughthey showed no significant difference with control groupbased on sex role. Higher masculinity was associated withmore severe personality disorder in women.