How a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder effects wellbeing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Using grounded theory to investigate service-user perceptions about the relationship between receiving a personality disorder diagnosis and the effect on their psychological wellbeing.
IRAS ID
274690
Contact name
Ian Smith
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Lancaster University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 21 days
Research summary
Personality disorders have been defined as “a description of those enduring characteristics of a person that impair their well-being or social functioning”. Diagnosing personality disorders is contentious due to the associated stigma, prejudice and potential to cause harm to service-users. However many NHS services continue to diagnose personality disorders and offer therapeutic intervention based on these diagnoses.
For this study service-users who have received a diagnosis of a borderline or emotionally unstable personality disorder will be recruited from the UK. They will be interviewed about the experience of how they received their diagnosis, in what setting and manner, and what was helpful and unhelpful about the way in which they received their diagnosis. This will be followed with questions about how the service-user felt that the way in which they were communicated the diagnosis subsequently impacted on their well-being.
The interviews will be transcribed and analysed to develop a theory about how the way in which a diagnosis of personality disorder is communicated may subsequently effect well-being. This will look to explain why some people may have different experiences and responses to receiving this diagnosis and why certain approaches in delivering a diagnosis of personality disorder may be more beneficial, or less detrimental, than other approaches.
REC name
South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/SC/0165
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jun 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion