This project expands our existing psychological services clinic (the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Clinic at Rutgers University; DBT-RU) to include an adolescent treatment arm. Adolescents aged 13-20 and at least one caregiver will be recruited to participate in a six-month treatment study. Adolescents will be eligible to participate if they meet at least 3 criteria for borderline personality disorder, with one of those criteria being either impulsive behavior or recurrent self-harm behavior. Participants will be assessed at baseline, three-months (mid-treatment), six-months (post-treatment, and three-month follow-up.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
56
DBT-A is a multimodal therapy which consists of weekly individual therapy, weekly multifamily skills groups, as needed phone coaching, and weekly consultation team for the therapists.
Rutgers University
Piscataway, New Jersey, United States
Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Inventory (SITBI)
semi-structured interview designed to assess presence of suicide ideation, suicide attempts, self-injurious behaviors
Time frame: six months
Work and Social Adjustment Scale
WSAS items are rated on a scale of 0 (No Impairment) to 8 (Severe Impairment). Total scores are calculated by adding the scores of all 5 items. The minimum score of the WSAS is 0 and the maximum score of the WSAS is 40. Scores below 10 are associated with subclinical populations. Scores between 10 and 20 are associated with significant impairment, but less severe clinical symptomology. Scores above 20 are associated with moderately severe or worse psychopathology.
Time frame: six months
Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)
The DERS is a 36-item measure of the six facets of emotion regulation. DERS items are rated on a scale of 1 (Almost Never 0-10%) to 5 (Almost Always 91-100%). The DERS total score ranges from 36-180. The total score is the sum of all subscales. Higher scores suggest greater problems with emotion regulation.
Time frame: six months
Borderline Symptom List (BSL-23)
The BSL is a 23-item measure that assesses specific symptoms of borderline personality disorder. BSL items are measured on a scale of 0 (Not at all) to 4 (Very strong). The sum of all 23 items serves as the global scale factor. The global factor minimum score of the BSL is 0 and the maximum score is 92. To generate scores that are comparable to the original BSL-95, the mean score must be calculated. Higher total scores are associated with more symptoms of borderline personality disorder.
Time frame: six months
Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI)
The BSI is a 53-item measure of psychological distress and psychological symptoms. BSI items are rated on a scale from 0 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely). The BSI consists of 9 symptom dimensions and 3 global indices of stress. All 9 dimensions (Somatization, Obsession-Compulsion, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Depression, Anxiety, Hostility, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation, and Psychoticism) have a score range from 0-5. Dimension scores are calculated by summing the values for the items included in that dimension and dividing by the number of items endorsed in that dimension. The 3 global indices of stress are Global Severity Index, Positive Symptom Total, and Positive Symptom Distress Index.
Time frame: six months
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