Comparing the executive function in patients with borderline personality disorder and bipolar II disorder

Introduction: Huge similarities between clinical characteristics of borderline personality disorder and bipolarII disorder has caused many conversations in terms of the relationships between two disorders.Many studies have investigated the similarities and differences of these two disorders in the field of symptomology, pathology and etiology. On this base, the goal of the current research was to investigate and compare the executive function of borderline and bipolar II disorders patients to know more about the relationship between these two disorders. Subjects & Methods: A total of 25 patients with borderline personality disorder and 27 patients with bipolar-II disorder, who were referred to the Kamkar-Arabnia hospital in Qom, were selected through convenience sampling method. These two groups were compared together and to a healthy control group, by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, that is used to measure the executive functions. Collected data were analyzed by using independent t-test, X2 and ANOVA. Results: Results showed that two clinical groups had poorer performance in all of the executive functions in comparison with healthy controls. Patients with borderline personality disorder showed poorest performance on cognitive flexibility domain. Patients with bipolar II had lowest performance on inability to receive feedback. There was no significant difference between the two clinical groups in none of the executive functions domains. Conclusion: These results provides empirical supportfor previous findings, which have reported executive dysfunctions, in both groups of patients. Although, there is no significant difference between the two clinical groups in executive functions in this study, more extensive studies are needed for clarification of relationship between the disorders.