Social cognition and social functioning in people with borderline personality disorder and their first-degree relatives

Background A few papers studying healthy, first-degree relatives of people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have found that this group presents attention and memory problems. However, current research has not analyzed their social cognition. Materials and methods We designed an age-, gender- and education-level matched case-control study involving 57 people with BPD, 32 of their first-degree relatives, and 57 healthy controls in Spain in 2018-2019. All were assessed for social cognition and functioning using the Movie for Assessment of Social Cognition and the Social Functioning Scale; other potential confounders were also collected (marital status, occupation and household variables). Results There were differences in the social cognition domain of overmentalizing errors, with the BPD group scoring significantly higher than controls; however, there was no significant difference with relatives; in the social functioning domain of family relationships, with the controls showing the highest scores. Social engagement/withdrawal, interpersonal behavior, independence-competence, prosocial activities, full scale and categorization domains showed the same pattern: the BPD group had lower scores than their relatives and the controls. Relatives were significantly different from BPD patients in family relationships, social engagement/withdrawal and interpersonal behavior, as well as on the full Social Functioning Scale (both as a linear and categorical variable). However, only controls showed differences with relatives in family relationships. Conclusions All in all, relatives show similar levels of social cognition and functioning compared with controls, and people with BPD show some alterations in different domains of both social cognition and functioning.