Smartphone apps combined with psychological interventions may be beneficial for increasing adherence to treatment tasks and augmenting outcomes. Yet, there is limited research on the acceptability and feasibility of adjunctive smartphone apps with psychological therapies for adolescents engaging in self-harm and suicidal behaviours. This study aimed to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of integrating the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Coach app as an adjunct to a comprehensive DBT programme. The study also aimed to explore statistical trends of the potential relationship between the DBT Coach app and symptom reduction, including self-harm, borderline personality disorder symptoms, emotion dysregulation, and DBT skill use, to inform future study design. A mixed-method design was used to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of the app and clinician’s portal from the perspective of adolescent and clinician participants. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. Results indicated varied experiences of acceptability and feasibility of the DBT Coach app and portal as an adjunct to DBT. Thematic analysis generated four over-arching themes and ten subthemes. The regression analysis provided statistical trends regarding potential relationships between app use and clinical outcomes, which would be helpful to explore in future research. Findings suggest that the app and portal were acceptable and feasible for the most part, with some barriers and challenges identified. Implications of this study are discussed.

1. (1) To learn about the acceptability and feasibility of using a smartphone application as an adjunct to a DBT skills group within a comprehensive DBT programme for adolescents.

2. (2) To explore whether there is a relationship between app use and clinical outcome at the end of the group intervention.

3. (3) To learn about the experiences of adolescents and clinicians using the smartphone app as an adjunct to the DBT skills group.

Sexuality and gender minoritised (SGM) adolescents are at increased risk of self-injury and suicide, and experience barriers to accessing mental health support. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is an effective treatment for self-injury and emotion dysregulation in adolescent populations, but few studies have published outcomes of DBT for SGM young people.

This study aimed to investigate treatment outcomes and completion for SGM adolescents and their cisgender and heterosexual peers, in the National & Specialist CAMHS, DBT service (UK).

Treatment completion, and opting out before and during treatment were examined for sexual and gender identity groups, as well as changes by the end of treatment in emotion dysregulation, self-injury, in-patient bed-days, emergency department attendances, and borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety symptoms.

SGM adolescents were over-represented in this service, even after considering their increased risk for self-injury. No statistically significant differences were found for treatment completion between the sexual orientation and gender identity groups, although there were patterns indicating possible lower treatment uptake and completion that warrant further investigation. Clinical outcomes for treatment-completers showed improvement by the end of DBT for each group, with few exceptions.

These results are from relatively small subsamples, and it was not possible to separate by sex assigned at birth. Findings should be treated tentatively and as early indications of effect sizes to inform future studies. This study suggests that DBT could be a useful treatment for SGM adolescents in a highly specialist treatment setting.

Although anti-racist adaptations to dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) are emerging, little qualitative research exists exploring adolescents’ perspectives on therapists’ approach, cultural competency and humility regarding ethnicity, race and culture (ERC) within DBT. This study explored diverse adolescents’ experiences of talking about ERC during all aspects of DBT treatment. Ten adolescents from diverse ERC backgrounds who attended DBT at a National and Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (UK) completed semi-structured individual interviews that were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, adopting a critical realist approach. Five over-arching themes were developed from the data. Theme 1 captures the power for explicit ERC-related conversations to facilitate change, as they are frequently overlooked in therapy. Theme 2 discusses factors that facilitate or inhibit ERC-related discussions. Theme 3 captures the difficult ‘double bind’ that adolescents find themselves in: not wanting to be a spokesperson for ERC issues whilst hoping for their therapist to facilitate/model ERC-related discussions. Theme 4 explores how adolescents navigated their identity in relation to ERC, their wider systemic context, and experiences of ERC-related trauma. Theme 5 explored therapeutic alliance, and how therapists might encourage DBT skills use with greater ERC sensitivity, emphasising validation. Using a bottom-up approach, we show a clear mandate from diverse adolescents for (White) clinicians to proactively create the space and safety required for ERC-related discussions. We emphasise the importance of anti-racist praxis including cultural humility, multi-cultural competencies, and validation of ERC-related difficult experiences within a wider systemic context.

1. (1) A recent publication by Pierson et al. (2022) has raised the importance for White DBT therapists to adopt an anti-racist position and actively reflect on how a lack of anti-racist stance can form therapist treatment-interfering behaviours.

2. (2) The current study explores the views of adolescents from diverse ethnic, racial and cultural (ERC) backgrounds on how ERC issues are being brought into DBT.

3. (3) Adopting a bottom-up approach, we identify key themes from adolescents’ perspectives on the barriers and facilitators to talking about ERC in the therapy room, why such discussions are important in supporting adolescents to navigate their own identity in therapy, and recommendations for clinicians to consider on ways of increasing and enhancing such conversations in the clinical setting.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 era, there has been a major shift of psychiatry and psychotherapy practice to the online venues, or what has been broadly known as telepsychiatry. A practice that has been very practical since then. And yet, there has been a debate about the patients’ degree of satisfaction with the therapeutic process, especially with a modality like group therapy, which has not been widely researched.

The objective of this pilot is to assess the level of patients’ satisfaction among both online and in-person participants of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills group as a part of comprehensive outpatient DBT program.

27 DBT skills group participants completed an online form including demographic data, type and duration of group attended, in addition to the Arabic version of the Satisfaction with Therapy and Therapist Scale- Revised (STTS-R).

The majority of the 27 participants were females (88.9%), of which 81.4% were 18-34 years old and 77.4 % at least had a university degree. Among all the participants, 63% were online group attendants versus 37% in-person. The mean total of patient’s satisfaction with the in-person group was 53.5 in comparison to 49.2 in online group participants. Also, 90% of in-person group participants reported that the group helped them in dealing with presenting problem to an extent in comparison to 82.2% of online participants.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic mandated more use of telepsychiatry, in-person DBT skills group participants reported higher satisfaction of their therapy in comparison to online group participants.

No significant relationships.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common and lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder with the hallmark features of social impairment and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour. Individuals with ASD often experience co-occurring mental health difficulties, some of which may obfuscate the ASD features themselves. Although there is a high need for mental health services for autistic adults, there are surprisingly few evidence-based treatments (EBTs) available; moreover, many mental health practitioners who are well-trained in EBTs shy away from treating autistic individuals due to lack of training in ASD.

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of dialectical behaviour therapy skills training (DBT-ST) in a sample of autistic adults without intellectual disability.

Sixteen adults with ASD were recruited from a treatment waiting list to enrol in this study, which included 24 weeks of DBT-ST delivered in a group setting. Feasibility and acceptability were assessed using retention and attendance data and a participant satisfaction questionnaire.

Retention (81.3%) and attendance data (mean 87.5%) provided support for the feasibility of this intervention. Overall satisfaction ratings were high (mean 4.5 out of 5), and participants reported that they felt that DBT-ST would probably be helpful for others with ASD (mean 4.5 out of 5).

The study findings provide preliminary evidence of (1) the feasibility of providing DBT-ST for autistic adults in community-based clinics, and (2) the perceived benefit of DBT-ST for this under-served population. Recommended modifications to the standard DBT-ST materials are discussed.

Current psychological interventions for psychosis focus primarily on cognitive and behavioural management of delusions and hallucinations, with modest outcomes. Emotions are not usually targeted directly, despite evidence that people with psychosis have difficulty identifying, accepting and modifying affective states.

This study assessed the impact of emotion regulation skills practice on affect and paranoia in seven people who met criteria for a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

The study utilised a single case ABA design and measured emotion regulation skills, affect and paranoia over baseline, intervention and withdrawal of intervention phases. We predicted that eight sessions of skills rehearsal would lead to improved emotion regulation, reduced negative affect, increased positive affect, and reduced paranoia.

Most participants were able to learn to regulate their emotions, and reported reduced negative affect and paranoia. There was no clear pattern of change for positive affect.

These findings suggest that emotion can be targeted in psychosis, and is associated with reduced paranoia. Emotion regulation may constitute a key treatment target in cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis.

No evidence-based therapy for borderline personality disorder (BPD) exhibits a clear superiority. However, BPD is highly heterogeneous, and different patients may specifically benefit from the interventions of a particular treatment.

From a randomized trial comparing a year of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to general psychiatric management (GPM) for BPD, long-term (2-year-post) outcome data and patient baseline variables (n = 156) were used to examine individual and combined patient-level moderators of differential treatment response. A two-step bootstrapped and partially cross-validated moderator identification process was employed for 20 baseline variables. For identified moderators, 10-fold bootstrapped cross-validated models estimated response to each therapy, and long-term outcomes were compared for patients randomized to their model-predicted optimal v. non-optimal treatment.

Significant moderators surviving the two-step process included psychiatric symptom severity, BPD impulsivity symptoms (both GPM > DBT), dependent personality traits, childhood emotional abuse, and social adjustment (all DBT > GPM). Patients randomized to their model-predicted optimal treatment had significantly better long-term outcomes (d = 0.36, p = 0.028), especially if the model had a relatively stronger (top 60%) prediction for that patient (d = 0.61, p = 0.004). Among patients with a stronger prediction, this advantage held even when applying a conservative statistical check (d = 0.46, p = 0.043).

Patient characteristics influence the degree to which they respond to two treatments for BPD. Combining information from multiple moderators may help inform providers and patients as to which treatment is the most likely to lead to long-term symptom relief. Further research on personalized medicine in BPD is needed.

DBT proved to be effective in reducing suicidal behavior, non-suicidal self-injury, psychiatric hospitalization, treatment dropout, substance use, anger, and depression and improving social and global functioning in Borderline personality disorder. As a step towards increasing utilization of evidence based treatments in the Egyptian healthcare system, the team at Alexandria university started a comprehensive DBT program.

To describe the implementation and dissemination experience of DBT in Egypt.

The implementation of DBT is examined quantitatively. Numbers were calculated retrospectively from the records at the implementation start in December 2013 and after 3 years in September 2016.

Number of therapists increased from one team of 2 therapists and one observer to 16 therapists organized in 3 teams plus 4 observers. The initial team, 7 psychiatrists and 2 clinical psychologists, could host and attend the first DBT Intensive Training in the middle east in 2014. DBT intensive training is the official training model developed by Dr. Linehan. We started with 8 clients one group for adults in Alexandria at 2013, increasing to 150 clients in 12 groups for adults, adolescent and SUD patients in 2016 with an average increase of 18.75 folds. The team participated and presented about DBT in 23 local and regional scientific meetings and hosted two workshops in collaboration with BehavioralTech, the official training institute.

Although the DBT implementation in Egypt represented a great challenge, results are showing a promising increase in the number of trained therapists and participating clients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a multi-modal psychological therapy with established efficacy in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD). Younger adults represent a group more likely to drop out of treatment than their older counterparts and treatments specifically targeted at this younger cohort may be advantageous.

We describe an evaluation of a DBT programme in a mental health centre for younger adults 18–25 years who met criteria for BPD (n=11).

We used a simple pre/post-test design, measuring BPD symptoms, general mental health symptoms, and coping skills using self-report questionnaires at the beginning of DBT and again following the delivery of 22 weeks of DBT.

Statistically significant reductions were found in BPD symptoms and several mental health symptoms alongside an increase in DBT skills use. Dropout was 31% at 22 weeks of treatment. Methodological weaknesses and avenues for future research are discussed.