Role of Childhood Maltreatment and Alexithymia in Predicting Borderline Personality Disorder: A Study in a Non-Clinical Population

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a multidimensional and heterogeneous disorder. Research has shown substantially in the last three decades that child abuse is a pathogenic factor for borderline personality disorder. The main purpose of this study was to predict the borderline personality disorder on the basis of childhood maltreatment and alexithymia, in nonclinical young adults. In this regard, 413 participants were selected using multistage sampling among all students studying in Tehran University. The Borderline Personality Scale (BPS), Child Abuse Self Report Scale (CASRS), and Toronto Alexi-thymia Scale (TAS-20) were used to measure variables. The raw data collected, was analyzed by structural equation modeling. The findings were similar to results of previous studies. The results indicate that theoretical model has a good fitness and childhood traumatic experiences (specially emotional abuse) and alexithymia are good predictors for borderline personality disorder. In addition, results revealed that alexithymia mediated rela-tionship between maltreatment and BPD symptoms.