The Functional Assessment for Borderline personality disorder (FAB) is a self-administered questionnaire designed to assess daily functioning of persons with BPD. The FAB underwent an in-depth review process of its indicators by a research team from Canada, Belgium and Switzerland and a second version was produced. The FAB2 has 38 items rated on two response scales: functioning mode and perception of the difficulty in carrying out daily activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the FAB2 in a sample of 100 persons living with BPD recruited into treatment programs in Western Switzerland and 50 control subjects. Convergent construct validity of the FAB2 with a well-being scale will be tested. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability will be estimated.
Methods: All participants will complete the FAB2, the EMMBEP and WHODAS 2.0 questionnaires. People with BPD will fill in the FAB2 twice, two weeks apart.
Preliminary results: Preliminary analyses were performed with the first 35 subjects with BPD and 22 control subjects recruited. The functioning and the difficulty scales total scores of the FAB2 are significantly different between subjects with BPD and control subjects (t(55) = -10.39, p < 0.001 and t(55) = 11.91 p < 0.001, respectively). The total scores of two scales of the FAB2 (functioning and difficulty) were strongly correlated with both the EMMBEP scores (r = -0.77, p > 0.001 and r = 0.84, p < 0.001) and the WHODAS 2.0 scores (r = 0.81, p < 0.001 and r = -0.87, p < 0.001). This study is ongoing and additional data will be presented at the meeting.
Conclusion: The strong associations found between FAB2, EMMBEP and WHODAS 2.0 suggest that the functioning mode of a person and its difficulty contribute to his/her well-being and health and support its validity.