Adaptation of IPT to borderline personality disorder: efficacy, predictors of response and follow-up evaluation

According to literature data and treatment guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2001, 2005), borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be successfully treated with combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Markowitz proposed an adaptation of the standard model of IPT for depression, in order to address the peculiar and challenging characteristics of BPD patients. We have performed three studies in this clinical population. The first one (Bellino et al, 2010) was aimed to investigate whether combined therapy with antidepressant and IPT-BPD was superior to single pharmacotherapy during a trial of 32 weeks in patients with a diagnosis of BPD. The second one (Bellino et al, 2015) was directed to identify clinical predictors of response to combined therapy with IPT-BPD in the patients evaluated in the first study. The objective of the third study was to assess if the differences between combined therapy with IPT-BPD and single pharmacotherapy found after 32 weeks (Bellino et al 2010) were maintained during a 2 years follow-up.