Aggression in borderline personality disorder.

This review examined aggressive behavior in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and its management in adults. Aggression against self or against others is a core component of BPD. Impulsiveness is a clinical hallmark (as well as a DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criterion) of BPD, and aggressive acts by BPD patients are largely of the impulsive type. BPD has high comorbidity rates with substance use disorders, Bipolar Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder; these conditions further elevate the risk for violence. Treatment of BDP includes psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, schema therapy, dialectic behavioral, group and pharmacological interventions. Recent studies indicate that many medications, particularly atypical antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, may reduce impulsivity, affective lability as well as irritability and aggressive behavior. But there is still a lack of large, double blind, placebo controlled studies in this area.

Predicting therapeutic results with levoprotiline and maprotiline in major depression: the role of the outcome criteria.

We describe a double-blind study involving 58 in-patients with major depression (DSM-III). After one week on placebo, the patients were randomly assigned to either levoprotiline or maprotiline treatment for three weeks. In the next three weeks, responders were maintained on the same medication and non-responders were shifted to treatment with the complementary drug. After the initial three weeks' treatment, 31% of levoprotiline patients and 58% of maprotiline patients had responded. Both in the initial three-week period and after shifting non-responders to the complementary drug, there were significant differences in favour of maprotiline. The comparison of properties of different outcome criteria in prediction analyses shows that the final score gives the best agreement with global evaluation; using the delta score (final minus baseline) or ratio score (final/baseline) as the outcome criterion may yield paradoxical results.