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The prevalence and severity of loneliness and deficits in perceived social support among who have received a 'personality disorder' diagnosis or have relevant traits: a systematic review

Ikhtabi, Sarah; Pitman, Alexandra; Maconick, Lucy; Pearce, Eiluned; Dale, Oliver; Rowe, Sarah; Johnson, Sonia; (2024) The prevalence and severity of loneliness and deficits in perceived social support among who have received a 'personality disorder' diagnosis or have relevant traits: a systematic review. BMC Psychiatry , 24 (1) , Article 21. 10.1186/s12888-023-05471-8. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Loneliness and struggles with unmet social needs are a common experience among people with 'personality disorder' diagnoses/traits. Given the impact of loneliness and poor perceived social support on mental health, and the importance of a sense of belonging for recovery, a systematic review examining the prevalence/severity of loneliness and deficits in perceived social support among people with 'personality disorder' diagnoses/traits is an essential step towards developing an intervention targeting the social needs of people with diagnoses/traits 'personality disorder'. Despite an extensive literature on loneliness and deficits of perceived social support among people with 'personality disorder' diagnosis/traits, to date there has been no systematic review of this evidence. METHOD: We conducted a systematic review synthesising quantitative data on the prevalence/severity of loneliness and deficits of perceived social support among people with diagnoses/traits of 'personality disorder' in comparison with other clinical groups and the general population. We searched Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Social Science, Google scholar and Ethos British Library from inception to December 2021. We conducted quality appraisals using the Joanna Briggs Critical appraisal tools and rated the certainty of evidence using the Grading of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach. A narrative synthesis was used describing the direction and strength of associations prioritising high quality studies. FINDINGS: A final set of 70 studies are included in this review, most of which are cross-sectional studies (n = 55), based in the United States (51%) and focused on community samples. Our synthesis of evidence found that, across all types of 'personality disorders' (except 'narcissistic personality' traits), people with traits associated with 'personality disorder' or meeting criteria for a diagnosis of 'personality disorder', have higher levels of loneliness, lower perceived relationship satisfaction, and poorer social support than the general population or other clinical samples. CONCLUSION: The quality of evidence is judged as low quality. However, given the distressing nature of loneliness and the known negative effects of loneliness on mental health and recovery, it is important for future research to explore mechanisms by which loneliness may exacerbate 'personality disorder' symptoms and the impact this has on recovery.

Type: Article
Title: The prevalence and severity of loneliness and deficits in perceived social support among who have received a 'personality disorder' diagnosis or have relevant traits: a systematic review
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s12888-023-05471-8
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-05471-8
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Keywords: Complex emotional needs, Literature review, Loneliness, Perceived social support, Personality disorder, Systematic review, Humans, Loneliness, Cross-Sectional Studies, Prevalence, Personality Disorders, Social Support
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry > Epidemiology and Applied Clinical Research
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10185200
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