Adolescence as a peak period of borderline personality features? A meta-analytic approach

This meta-analysis of cross-sectional data aimed to shed light on the often assumed peak in mean-level of borderline personality features during middle to late adolescence (i.e. age 17–22). Borderline personality features were operationalized through the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID-II). Search terms were entered into PsycINFO and Scopus. A total of 168 samples were included in the analyses, comprising 25,053 participants. Mean age ranged from 14.35 to 51.47 years ( M = 29.01, SD = 8.52) and mean number of borderline personality features from 0 to 8.10 ( M = 4.59, SD = 2.34). The hypothesized peak between age 17 and 22 was not substantiated by the confirmatory ANOVA analysis. However, subsequent exploratory GAM analysis provided evidence for a peak at 29.4 years. Caution is needed in interpreting these findings given that different trends appeared when GAM models were constructed separately for community, patient and borderline personality disorder (BPD) samples. Age differences in community samples indicated a significant linear decline in mean-level of borderline personality features over time. A linear rising trend was found in BPD samples. As a between-person mean-level approach was used in the current study, future longitudinal studies are needed to substantiate if between-person age difference generalize to within-person changes.