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Borderline personality disorder in Irish Travellers: a cross-sectional study of an ultra-high-risk group

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Abstract

Background

Irish Travellers are a marginalised ethnic minority with poor health outcomes, especially in mental health: the suicide rate in this population is 6–7 times that in the general population. There is a paucity of research into associated clinical risk factors including self-harm and mental illnesses.

Aims

To examine the prevalence and treatments of mental disorders among Travellers attending a community mental health team (CMHT) in Galway.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study of the CMHT database, and included all Travellers who were active cases on the study day were included in this study.

Results

Travellers formed 12.4% (51 out of 410) of the active caseload of the mental health service. The mean age was 35.7 years (SD 13.1). The most common mental disorder was depressive disorder (16/51, 31.4%). Of 51 patients, 25.5% (13/51) were diagnosed with BPD: 7 had other comorbid mental disorders. Patients diagnosed with BPD are significantly more likely to be prescribed psychopharmacotherapy (t = 2.834, p = 0.007). A diagnosis of BPD was significantly associated with history of self-harm after controlling for age and gender (OR 2.3, p = 0.005).

Conclusion

This study shows that there is a significant overrepresentation of Travellers in mental health services, suggesting significant need for accessible and acceptable interventions. Those with a BPD diagnosis have a significantly higher risk of self-harm, representing an ultra-high-risk population. These findings can be used to plan future service development projects to better meet the needs of this population: they may require specially adapted version of the mentalisation-based treatment programme.

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Data availability

The data may be made available upon reasonable request to the authors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Tuam community mental health team for their assistance with data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Galway, Newcastle Road, Galway, Ireland

    Kezanne Tong, Sinead Costello & Evelyn McCabe

  2. Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, NUI Galway, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland

    Sinead Costello

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University College Dublin, 63 Eccles Street, Dublin, 7, Ireland

    Anne Marie Doherty

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, 63 Eccles Street, Dublin, 7, Ireland

    Anne Marie Doherty

Authors
  1. Kezanne Tong
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  2. Sinead Costello
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  3. Evelyn McCabe
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  4. Anne Marie Doherty
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Contributions

KT, SC, EMcC and AMD were involved in the planning and design of this research. KT and SC collected the data. KT and AMD conducted the statistical analysis. KT wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and AMD edited. KT, SC, EMcC and AMD read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anne Marie Doherty.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Ethical approval was granted by the Saolta Clinical Research Ethics Committee.

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Tong, K., Costello, S., McCabe, E. et al. Borderline personality disorder in Irish Travellers: a cross-sectional study of an ultra-high-risk group. Ir J Med Sci 190, 735–740 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-020-02369-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-020-02369-2

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