Literature Review: Healthcare Professionals' Attitudes to BPD Patients

This literature review examines the negative attitudes of healthcare professionals towards patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a mental illness characterized by impulsiveness, extreme emotions, and unstable relationships. It identifies factors contributing to these negative perceptions, such as incompetence, poor training, stereotypes, and a lack of understanding of ethical codes. The review highlights the dangers of negative attitudes, including poor quality and unsafe care, client discouragement, and a strained rapport between healthcare professionals and clients. It proposes remedies such as training healthcare professionals on the nature and impact of negative attitudes, the benefits of positive attitudes, and strategies for providing appropriate care. The review emphasizes the importance of well-planned and inclusive teaching strategies, seminars, workshops, and the use of teaching aids to improve healthcare professionals' attitudes and ultimately enhance the quality of care for BPD patients. Desklib provides a platform to explore more solved assignments and past papers for students.

NEGATIVE ATTITUDE OF THE HEALTHCARE
PROFESSIONALS TOWARDS BORDERLINE
PERSONALITY DISORDER PATIENTS
Name
Institution

Introduction
 Borderline personality disorder is a
common mental health illness
 It affects both males and females
 The condition is caused by genetics and
cognitive factors
 The disease can be managed if
appropriate interventions given
 Healthcare professionals tend to develop
negative attitude towards the patients

Borderline Personality Disorder
 A disease of the mind-mental illness
 Hinders a person from leading normal
and functional life
 Prevalence rates currently stand at not
more than 10% of the population
 Disease linked to brain abnormalities as
well as genetics

Signs and Symptoms
 Impulsiveness
 Extreme emotions
 Distorted self-image
 A pattern of unstable intense
relationships
 Suicidal thoughts
 Anger

Diagnosis and Treatment
 When symptoms noticed, patient to seek
for timely-checking
 Diagnosis done by psychiatric testing
 If diagnosed, patient to be given
appropriate treatment and management
 Medications can be prescribed
 Recommended therapy can also be
offered

Negative Attitude of Healthcare
Professionals towards the Clients
 Some medics show negative perception
to the borderline personality disorder
clients
 There might therefore be some form of
negative attitudes like:
=Hatred,
=Anger,
=Prejudice,
=Discontent,
=Fear, and many other negative labels

Why Negative Perception
 Incompetence of the healthcare
professionals
 Poor training of the healthcare
professionals
 Stereotypes (O'connell & Dowling, 2013).
 Lack of multicultural and culturally-safe
care
 Poor understanding and lack of
appreciation of the ethical codes of
conduct (Dickens, Hallett & Lamont,
2016).

Dangers of Negative Perception
 It is bad and causes poor quality health
service
 It can lead to provision of unsafe care
 It might discourage the clients
 It can derail the fight against the
borderline personality disorder
(Nebhinani, Nebhinani, Tamphasana &
Gaikwad, 2013).
 It might cause a bad rapport between the
healthcare professional and clients

Remedy
 Challenge can be addressed by training
the healthcare professionals on:
 What negative attitude towards clients means
Types of negative attitudes
Benefits of positive attitude
Disadvantages of negative attitude
Why clients need good attitude
How to address the problem by problem by
giving the clients the service that befits their
situation (Dickens, Hallett & Lamont, 2016).

…Remedy
 The healthcare professionals to be taught
well:
 In the seminars, workshops, and conferences
 Teaching process to be planned and executed
well
 Appropriate teaching strategies to be adopted
 Teaching process to be participatory and
inclusive, and interactive (O'connell &
Dowling, 2013).
 All the necessary teaching aids to be used
well

Conclusion
 Borderline personality disorder is a
mental illness affecting many people
 The disease to be handled well
 All the healthcare professionals must not
show negative attitude towards clients
 It is a bad habit and can cause more
harm
 The healthcare professionals to be taught
well

References
Dickens, G. L., Hallett, N., & Lamont, E. (2016).
Interventions to improve mental health nurses’ skills,
attitudes, and knowledge related to people with a
diagnosis of borderline personality disorder: Systematic
review. International journal of nursing studies, 56, 114-
127.
Nebhinani, M., Nebhinani, N., Tamphasana, L., & Gaikwad,
A. D. (2013). Nursing students’ attitude towards suicide
attempters: A study from rural part of Northern India.
Journal of neurosciences in rural practice, 4(4), 400.
O'connell, B., & Dowling, M. (2013). Community psychiatric
nurses' experiences of caring for clients with borderline
personality disorder. Mental Health Practice (through
2013), 17(4), 27.