Are Borderline Personality Disorder Features Differentially Related to Pre-Incarceration Alcohol, Cannabis, Cocaine, and Opioid Dependence Among People Recently Incarcerated in Jail?

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and substance use disorders (SUDs) commonly co-occur across various settings. However, little research has examined how BPD features relate to specific types of SUDs. This study examined whether BPD features assessed shortly after incarceration were differentially related to symptoms of dependence on alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and opioids experienced in the 12 months prior to incarceration among 510 people recently incarcerated in jail. Follow-up multigroup analyses evaluated whether gender or race moderated the relation of BPD features to the four SUDs. Using structural equational modeling, the relationships of BPD features were compared to each of the four preincarceration dependence symptoms. BPD features were significantly related to dependence on each of the four substances, but the link between BPD features and cocaine dependence was stronger than BPD's association with alcohol, cannabis, or opioid dependence. These findings generalized across men and women and across White and Black people.