A Comparison of Problem Solving, Working Memory, and Selective Attention Executive Functions in Patients with Bipolar II Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Non-clinical Samples

The distinction between Bipolar II Disorder (BD-II) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) due to symptom overlap has always been a challenging issue among psychiatrists. In the present study, problem-solving functions, working memory and selective attention were compared in BD-II patients, BPD and non-clinical samples to distinguish the two disorders.
For this purpose, 30 BD-II patients, 30 BPD and 30 non-clinical sample were selected by convenience sampling method. They were evaluated using Executive Function (EFs) tests. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance and Tukey's post hoc test.
Except for selective attention, which was not significantly different in BD-II patients compared to the non-clinical group (P>0/05); BD-II patients and BPD in all EFs had significantly lower performance than the non-clinical group (P<0/01, P<0/05). Problem solving ability was significantly lower in BD-II patients than in BPD patients (P<0/05). There was no significant difference between the two patient groups in working memory and selective attention (P>0/05).
These findings, provides evidence of differences in some of the EFs in BD-II patients and BPD; which may be related to different impulsivity in these two disorders. Therefore, conducting research in other dimensions of EFs is recommended to distinguish between these two disorders.