Modeling the relationship between Overgeneral Autobiographical Memory and problem solving in people with borderline personality disorder: The mediating role of metacognitive awareness

People with borderline personality disorder experience problems in a variety of cognitive areas, including information processing, decision making, planning, memory, and problem solving. The aim of the study was to modeling the intermediate role of metacognitive awareness on the relationship between overgeneral autobiographical memory and problem solving. The research was fundamental and in terms of implementation method was correlational. The statistical population included all individuals with borderline personality disorder who referred to psychological and psychiatric clinics in Kurdistan province in 1397-98. 300 patients with diagnosis of borderline personality disorder based on clinical interview and willing to participate in the study were selected. They answered the Autobiographical memory test, metacognition awareness questionnaire and social problem solving inventory. Data were analyzed using Amos software. Findings showed that overgeneral autobiographical memory has a direct effect on problem solving skills and metacognitive awareness with coefficients of 0.17 and 0.20, respectively. Also, the direct effect of metacognitive awareness on problem solving was 0.35. Overgeneral Autobiographical memory predicted 4% of the variance of metacognitive awareness, and Overgeneral autobiographical memory with metacognitive awareness predicted 17% of problem-solving changes. On the other hand, the indirect effect of Overgeneral autobiographical memory on problem-solving skills was 0.07, which shows that the indirect effect of Overgeneral autobiographical memory on problem-solving skills is significant. Therefore, it can be concluded that metacognitive awareness acts as a mediator as an observer, which increases the scores of problem-solving skills.