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. 2025 Sep;34(3):e70029.
doi: 10.1002/mpr.70029.

Psychometric Evaluation of the Borderline Personality Disorder Checklist

Philippa Lynn Mayer  1 , Anna Lisa Westermair  2   3 , Nele Assmann  4 , Joos Bloo  5 , Natalia Calvo  6   7 , Chiara De Panfilis  8 , Eva Fassbinder  9 , Marc Ferrer  6   7 , Gitta Jacob  9   10 , Juliette Richetin  11 , Anja Schaich  4 , Emanuele Preti  11 , Jan Philipp Klein  1 , Arnoud Arntz  12
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Psychometric Evaluation of the Borderline Personality Disorder Checklist

Philippa Lynn Mayer et al. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Background: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe and disabling condition. The Borderline Personality Disorder Checklist (BPDCL) was designed to specifically assess the subjective burden of a patient due to BPD symptoms. Various translations have been developed, but an assessment of the psychometric properties of these translations is needed. The aim was to examine the psychometric qualities of the BPDCL across different languages (i.e., Italian, Dutch, German, Spanish, English, and Greek).

Methods: Secondary data was used by reaching out to various researchers, who administered the BPDCL in previous studies. Five studies (N = 3199) conducted in Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, England, and Greece, were included in the current data set. The BPDCL was administered to BPD patients (N = 1131), Axis I disorder patients (N = 57), patients with other personality disorders (N = 225), and healthy controls (N = 1786). Item analyses and analyses assessing the known-groups and convergent validity were performed to investigate the psychometric properties of the checklist.

Results: Each version of the BPDCL, differing in language, demonstrated high-reliability coefficients (Cronbach's Alpha ranged from 0.93 to 0.96 and was 0.96 for the entire sample). The correlations between the BPDCL and other instruments, used in the studies, were weak to strong. Correlations greater than 0.55 were observed between the BPDCL and the scales BPDSI, SCL-90 and the BSI. In addition, the BPDCL seems to differentiate well between diagnostic groups. BPD patients scored the highest, followed by patients with other personality disorders, who in turn scored higher than Axis I disorder patients and healthy controls.

Conclusions: In general, the BPDCL possesses good psychometric properties and seems to be an adequate self-report instrument to measure the subjective burden of BPD patients.

Keywords: borderline personality disorder; borderline personality disorder checklist; psychometric validation; reliability; validity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

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