Authors: Papathanasiou Chrysovalantis, Stylianidis Stelios.
Negative attitudes towards patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may affect treatment outcomes. We aimed to identify a) negative attitudes exhibited by mental health professionals towards patients with BPD and b) the effects of disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity on these negative attitudes. Mental health professionals (N = 136) completed questionnaires on attitudes towards patients with BPD and disgust propensity/sensitivity. Significant differences in negative attitudes towards patients with BPD based on gender, marital status, occupational subgroup, educational level, psychotherapy training, level of exposure to patients with BPD, and political ideology were found. Results suggested patients with BPD are viewed by mental health professionals as ineffective, incomprehensible, dangerous, unworthy, immoral, undesirable to be with, and dissimilar to the mental health professionals. Moreover, disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity were associated with stronger negative attitudes towards patients with BPD. The findings emphasize the importance of mental health professionals’ awareness of the emotion of disgust as a relevant factor to their negative attitudes towards patients with BPD.
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