The BPD Test

Every result, explained

The BPD Test is the MSI-BPD screen; the score lands in one of four tiers. It screens, it does not diagnose.

• The Functional Self

  BPD pattern is not registering on this screen.

  Your MSI-BPD score is in the bottom range (0-2 yes responses). Borderline traits are not registering as your operating profile. You may have arrived here because someone, a partner, a sibling, a therapist with a soft definition of the term, applied the BPD label to you in a way that didn't sit right. The instrument did not find it.

• Sub-Clinical Range

  Some BPD trait registration, below the threshold the literature treats as clinical.

  Your MSI-BPD score is 3-4 yes responses, which puts you in the sub-clinical band. Some BPD traits are registering, possibly mood reactivity, identity uncertainty, the chronic emptiness, or one or two of the relational items, but not at the level Zanarini's threshold treats as a positive screen. The literature considers this range non-diagnostic; the suffering, where it's there, is real but does not configure as the disorder.

• The Threshold

  Significant trait registration. Below the Zanarini cutoff, but close enough to take seriously.

  Your MSI-BPD score is 5-6 yes responses, which puts you in the High tier, significant trait registration that sits just below the Zanarini cutoff of 7. The pattern is real. Whether or not it crosses into a clinical diagnosis depends on the severity of each registering item, on duration, and on the specific configuration of which items came back yes. The MSI-BPD is a screen; it cannot give you the answer that interview-based instruments (DIB-R, SCID-II) can.

• The Pattern

  At or above the Zanarini cutoff. A positive screen, which is a reason to get assessed and not an answer.

  Your MSI-BPD score is 7 or higher, at or above the cutoff Zanarini published in 2003. That is a positive screen. Pooled across the eleven validations since, a screen at this cutoff catches about 80 in 100 who have the pattern and clears about 66 in 100 who do not, so in a general-population setting like this one most positive screens belong to people who do not have BPD. That is not a reason to dismiss the result; it is the reason the result is a door to an assessment rather than an answer. Zanarini's original sample reported 81% and 85%, and most BPD quizzes online still quote only those two numbers, which is why this page prints the pooled pair instead. A score in this range is the strongest signal a brief instrument can give for booking a full diagnostic interview.

Nothing on these pages is a diagnosis. A result describes a pattern of answers on a self-report instrument; only a clinician can diagnose, and only with a proper assessment.