Introduction to education for borderline personality disorder in Scotland

Personality disorder integrated care pathway
NHS Highland

The difficulties with which people with personality disorder present may vary depending on the agency or service involved. For example, an individual may present to the housing services as someone with difficulty in maintaining a tenancy whereas the Emergency Department may view the person’s primary problem as repeated overdoses. For social services, childcare and parenting issues may be viewed as the principal problem, and so on.

The complexity associated with personality disorder means that patients with the condition frequently pose significant challenges to the professionals working with them. Occasionally professionals can find it hard to understand why individuals present as they do, and the emotional responses of professionals to particular behaviours or patterns of behaviour can be intense and sometimes unhelpful. Education with the aim of enhancing knowledge, attitudes and skills can be of real value in helping professionals become more aware of the issues which frequently accompany personality disorder. This includes factual knowledge about these conditions, contributing factors, prognosis and treatment approaches. In turn, improved knowledge and active self-reflection can contribute to more helpful attitudes and more compassionate responses towards patients with these conditions.

This section deals only with education and awareness interventions for professionals. While no less important, issues related to patient (and social network) education can be found in the Psychosocial Interventions Section and Self-management Section. In addition, psychoeducational materials which may be of benefit to patients, social network members and professionals can be found in the Appendix.

Education and awareness-raising resources

Until now, much of the education and awareness delivered by the Personality Disorder Service has been on an ad-hoc basis. Educational sessions have been provided to many of the disciplines, services and the agencies listed above, and in other settings. Sessions have usually followed specific requests and been tailored according to particular needs. In some settings, educational sessions have been co-delivered with service users. Service user involvement in education and awareness-raising adds the patient’s unique experience of living with personality disorder to the professional perspective.

The Personality Disorder Service educational programme is currently undergoing development, including evaluation of the possibility of electronically available educational modules. Currently, the main regular educational sessions occur four times per year. Each session covers a different personality disorder-related subject and lasts for approximately 2 hours. The PDS distributes dates and topics by email. Anyone with an interest in personality disorder is welcome. As well as these regular sessions, the PDS service will consider any request for education on subjects related to personality disorder.

Personality Disorder Integrated Care Pathway

This ICP itself aims to serve as a valuable educational tool. Each section summarises an important topic in personality disorder and useful resources and links can be found throughout. In addition, the publication of this document will be supported by an educational and awareness raising program. The educational support aims to be broad in scope, including primary care, general health, mental health, other public sector and third sector services.. This list is not intended to be exclusive, and the PDS will endeavour to respond to requests for awareness raising of the PD-ICP document.

Scottish Personality Disorder Network (SPDN)

The NHS Highland PDS is actively involved with the SPDN. The SPDN was established by the Scottish Government in 2006 to promote awareness of personality disorder and to provide a forum to allow professionals, patients and members of their social networks to meet in order to help progress work on personality disorder locally and nationally. The SPDN usually meets at least three times a year in different locations around Scotland. This is to ensure that interested individuals can access the Network.

Conferences are open to service users, members of their social networks and professionals.