Comparison of the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation and drug therapy on executive functions in patients with borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder is one of the severe psychological disorder that is associated with many problems in executive functions. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation and drug therapy on executive functions in patients with borderline personality disorder.

This is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with control group design on 45 patients with borderline personality disorder that were selected using available sampling and randomly divided into three groups (two experimental groups and one control group). The cognitive rehabilitation group underwent Captain’s Log cognitive rehabilitation program for 12 sessions. The drug therapy group was treated with lamotrigine for three months. To collect data, Executive Functions Questionnaire (Nejati, 2013) was used. Three months later, the subjects were followed again. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance by repeated measures.

The results showed a significant difference between the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up measurements. In addition, according to the significance of F obtained in the intergroup source in the total score of executive functions, memory components, selective inhibition,selective attention, decision making, planning, sustained attention, social cognition, and cognitive flexibility, it can be said that there is a significant difference between the average scores of the experimental groups and the control group.

According to the findings, it can be said that cognitive rehabilitation and drug therapy can be used as effective methods in increasing executive functions in medical centers.