Levels of distress tolerance in schizophrenia appear equivalent to those found in borderline personality disorder

Abstract

Objective: Distress tolerance is an important but understudied construct for those with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. This study compared levels of distress tolerance between people diagnosed with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder (BPD) to better characterize distress tolerance in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Method: Using cross-sectional data, we examined group differences in distress tolerance in people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (n = 55) and BPD (n = 32) through mean comparison and equivalence analyses. Results: Our results indicate that, in our data, distress tolerance did not differ between those with schizophrenia and those with BPD, and was in fact statistically equivalent between groups. In contrast, those with BPD tended to report more difficulty on some aspects of emotion regulation. Conclusion: Findings from this study suggest that increased focus on distress tolerance is called for in research on schizophrenia. Furthermore, people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders may benefit from interventions targeting distress tolerance.