The Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children (BPFSC-11): psychometric properties and convergence with measures of child maltreatment and depression in Vietnamese adolescents

Background Borderline personality features (BPF) are developmentally meaningful indicators of emotional, interpersonal, and identity dysregulation in adolescence, which are commonly linked to child maltreatment (CM), depression and suicidal ideation. In Vietnam, where CM and mental health problems among adolescents represent a significant public health concern, no culturally validated tool exists to assess BPF. This study examined the psychometric properties and gender invariance of the Vietnamese version of the Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children (BPFSC-11) and evaluated its convergent validity with depressive symptoms and CM. Methods The participants were 2,326 secondary school students in grades 7 and 9 (49.9% female) recruited from 8 randomly selected schools in Northern Vietnam. BPF were measured using the BPFSC-11, while CM was assessed through an adapted Computer-Assisted Maltreatment Inventory scale (CAMI). All instruments were administered in Vietnamese. To examine the factor structure of the BPFSC-11, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on a randomly selected half of the dataset, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the remaining half. Measurement invariance across gender was assessed using multigroup CFA (configural, metric, scalar). Convergent validity was examined through correlations between BPF, depressive symptoms and CM. Results The BPFSC-11 demonstrated high internal consistency ( α = 0.87) and a unidimensional factor structure supported by both EFA and CFA. Measurement invariance across genders was established. Female adolescents scored significantly higher on BPF compared to males. Moderate to strong correlations were found between BPF, CM, and depressive symptoms ( r varies from 0.32 to 0.66, p < 0.001), indicating adequate convergent validity. Conclusions The Vietnamese BPFSC-11 appears to be a reliable and valid brief measure for assessing BPF in Vietnamese adolescents. Its strong psychometric performance supports its use in research and school-based screening to identify at-risk adolescents, better understand adolescent emotional and interpersonal difficulties, and their associations with CM. Further longitudinal and clinical validation is warranted to examine developmental trajectories and broader applicability. Clinical trial number Not applicable.