The finding:
General psychiatric management is a generalist approach to the treatment of borderline personality disorder with the goal of managing mild- to-moderate symptoms by a wide range of clinicians. This improves access to treatment for patients with borderline personality disorder. This article talks about adapting the structure to include treatment of comorbid eating disorders. Both conditions have high morbidity and mortality. Treatment structure includes several steps, starting with a general medical assessment and ending with multimodal treatment.

Strength and weaknesses:
This approach recognizes the common psychological symptoms of affective instability, rejection sensitivity and impulsivity between the two conditions and facilitates effective treatment in adolescence, when prognosis is better. Strengths of this approach include improving access to care, empowering psychiatrists in different settings to provide evidence-based care.

It has the limitation of not being specific or sufficient for moderate to severe cases in which case referral to specialized care such as DBT or an eating disorders program is indicated.

Relevance:
30-50% of adolescents with borderline personality disorder also have eating disorders. The proportion of sub-threshold eating disorders is likely much higher. Suicide rated among youth with borderline personality disorder and eating disorders are high. Interventions for both issues are specialized, intensive and lengthy. Finding specific treatment for two disorders with high mortality limits access and prevents prompt treatment. Implementing the GPM model ensures prompt and standardized care which may be effective and sufficient for a large number of patients with mild- moderate symptoms while specialized care may be relevant for more severe cases.