Attitudes and perceptions of mental health nurses towards borderline personality disorder clients in acute mental health settings: a review of the literature.

摘要

This study aims to synthesize published research on registered mental health nurses' (RMNs) attitudes towards clients with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in acute mental health inpatient settings. BPD has been categorized as a diagnostic type of personality disorder in both the DSM IV (American Psychiatric Association 2000), which suggests a key feature of BPD is a 'pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts' and the ICD-10 (World Health Organization 1992), which uses an alternative definition and terminology of this disorder which makes reference to an Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. In relation to the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association 2000) BPD is described as a cluster B personality disorder that is labelled as 'emotional or erratic types', and as suggested by Moran (2002) this cluster tends to attract the most attention through behaviours such as poor impulse control and deliberate self-harm.