DEVELOPMENT OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY TENDENCIES SCALE IN A SAMPLE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The current research aimed at developing a scale to measure Borderline Personality Tendencies (BPT) in university students. 24 post graduate university students (12 men & 12 women) with the age range of 18-24 years were selected through stratified random sampling. Selected participants were interviewed using phenomenological approach. Generated list of 56 items was presented to 10 experts (5 psychiatrists & 5 clinical psychologists). Final selected list of 54 items was piloted on 15 university students as a self-report measure (BPT). No difficulty related to the instructions, content and comprehension of the items was reported. A sample of 396 post graduate students selected through stratified sampling with the age range of 18-24 years (M = 20.03, SD = 1.40) was given the self-report measure and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale Short Form (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). Factor analysis yielded a two factor solution namely Lack of Sensitivity for Others and Lack of Emotional Control. The results indicate that BPTS shows high internal consistency, test-retest and split-half reliability and good construct validity. It is concluded that the developed scale is a reliabile and valid measure to assess borderline personality tendencies.