The primary aim of our study was to investigate the capacity for emotion regulation and personality factors and its relationship with in female adolescents with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

A consecutive sample of adolescent psychiatric patients has been studied in comparison to 29 adolescents patients with other psychiatric diagnoses, and to a control group of 30 healthy subjects. Axis I diagnoses were surveyed with the German version (Delmo et al., 2000) of the semistructured diagnostic interview of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children–Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL; Kaufman et al., 1997). Axis II diagnoses were assessed by using the German version (Fydrich et al., 1997) of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID-II; First et al., 1996). To measure emotion regulation the emotion control questionnaire (ECQ; Roger & Nesshoever, 1987) has been used. To investigate the personality factors the German version (Schmeck et al., 2001) of the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory (JTCI, Cloninger et al., 1994) was used.

A lower degree of capacity for emotion regulation, high degree of impulsivity and novelty seeking as well as more character problems were related to the group of patient with a diagnosis of BPD and self-injurious behaviour in comparison to the control groups.

The investigation of personality factors and its relation to distinct psychiatric symptoms in BPD may lead to a better understanding to different subtypes of BPD in adolescents.