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Abstract
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Objectives
Dialectical behavioural therapy for adolescents (DBT-A) is the adapted version of the general DBT treatment. It has been developed for young patients with dysfunctional behaviour, difficulties in emotion regulation and symptoms that could lead up to a Borderline Personality Disorder. The treatment consists of individual therapy as well as skills training in a group setting and integrates classic principles of behavioural therapy and Zen Buddhism (Fleischhacker, Sixt & Schulz, 2009). The efficiency of the DBT-A treatment has been broadly analysed in outpatient settings (e.g. Courtney & Flament, 2015), but there is little work being done about inpatient treatment (Katz, Cox, Gunasekara & Miller, 2004).
Methods
The aim of this repeated measures design study is to analyse the development in emotional stability, deliberate self harming and self-esteem of the patients (girls of 14-17 years of age) getting the DBT-A inpatient treatment over 3-4 months at Clienia Littenheid AG. These variables were assessed before and after treatment with the Borderline Symptom List (BSL-23), the Diary Card to measure every days self harming behaviour and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. As moderation variables for therapy outcome we consider comorbid depressive symptomatology, measured by the BDI-II, the presence of traumatic events in the past, assessed by the UCLA, and specific eating disorders subscales, measured by the EDI-II.
Results
To analyse the development of the emotional stability we calculated an ANOVA with repeated measures (n = 81) that points out a highly significant increase over the therapy process (p = 0.0001) with a big effect size η^2 = 0.332. Concerning the self-esteem (n = 10) we calculated a Wilcoxon-Test that show as well a significant increase over the therapy durance (p = 0.022) with a big effect size of r = 0.6.
Conclusion
As the study is still going on, we can at this point report first results concerning variables indicating therapy output. Inpatient DBT-A seems to be an efficient way to reduce relevant symptoms of young patients with the named problems. Factors supporting or slowing down the positive development will be further discussed.
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