ABSTRACT
Several cross-sectional studies have documented the high percentage of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) who have a lifetime history of taking anticonvulsant mood stabilizers (1,2). More recently, a study of the longitudinal course of BPD (3) documented high rates of the use of anticonvulsant mood stabilizers throughout six years of prospective follow-up. More specifically, about a quarter of the patients with BPD studied took such a mood stabilizer during the first two years after their index admission, 22% took such a mood stabilizer during the third and fourth years after their entry into the study, and 18% during their fifth and sixth years of study participation.
