BACKGROUND: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a profound instability of identity, by stress and affect dysregulation and impulsivity, and by cognitive-perceptual disturbances. These deficits seriously impair interpersonal experiences and social interaction. The typical impulsive style and psychosocial malfunctioning of these patients lead to grave disturbances in their everyday areas of life with numerous break-ups in all relevant areas of life and entail inadequate vocational placement. Despite vast demands on the health care system, BPD attracts little attention of care process research and reintegration measures as, for instance, exist for schizophrenia. At the LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf as representative of a large clinic in North Rhein-Westphalia, we analysed socio-demographic characteristics of BPD inpatients. The aims of the study were to substantiate the high impact of the disease on patient's social and vocational integration and to sensitize for significant aspects of disease-specific therapy and care. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of DGPPN-BADO of all patients (n = 9,425) who were admitted between January 2004 and December 2009 to the LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf, department of psychiatry and psychotherapy, Heinrich Heine University Hospital, Germany. Data analysis involved the divisions general psychiatry and addictive disorders and covered 999 patients with BPD (ICD-10: F60.3) and 1,937 patients with schizophrenia (ICD-10: F20). The defined characteristics of DGPPN-BADO that depict psychosocial integration were "living situation at admission", "highest academic/professional degree achieved", "working situation" und "livelihood". Besides descriptive statistics of the elected variables, comparative analysis of the diagnoses BPD and schizophrenia involved calculating group differences after adjusting the groups for sex and age. Statistical analysis was performed by the χ2-test. RESULTS: The comparative analysis of psychosocially relevant BADO characteristics reveals a significantly stronger impairment of patients with BPD concerning their academic and professional qualification than patients with schizophrenia. Nevertheless they more often hold a job or cover their living expenses without subsidy, respectively. CONCLUSION: The data suggest a lack of general awareness in the significance of social and vocational disturbances in BPD. The interactional deficits of patients with BPD affect all areas of life but their illness-related nature seems to be disregarded in relevant life areas, such as educational processes and the vocational situation. Furthermore, the impact of BPD on earning capacity is not given adequate consideration in the assessment of pensions or subsidies. Consistent with the recent literature, our socio-demographic data indicate significant deficits of the present health system in handling BPD.