Single-session dialectical behavior therapy skills training versus relaxation training for non-treatment-engaged suicidal adults: a randomized controlled trial

Preliminary outcomes from a single-session, asynchronous, online stress and anxiety management workshop for college students

OBJECTIVES

Self-guided, asynchronous, online interventions may provide college students access to evidence-based care, while mitigating barriers like limited hours of service. Thus, we examined the preliminary effectiveness of a 45-minute, self-guided, asynchronous, online, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)-informed stress and anxiety management workshop. College undergraduates (n = 131) were randomized to either workshop (n = 65) or waitlist control (n = 66) conditions.

METHODS

Participants in the workshop condition completed baseline measures of depression, stress, and anxiety, before completing the workshop. Participants in the waitlist control condition only completed the baseline measures. All participants were reassessed at 1-week follow-up.

RESULTS

Controlling for baseline measures, students in the workshop condition experienced significantly less stress and greater self-efficacy to regulate stress and anxiety at follow-up, compared to waitlist controls.

CONCLUSION

A 45-minute, self-guided, asynchronous, online DBT skills-informed stress and anxiety management workshop may reduce stress and improve self-efficacy to regulate stress and anxiety.

A Narrative Review on Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Patients with Depressive Difficulties

Background:

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that was earlier intended to treat only patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), but researchers have found DBT to treat several psychological disorders, including depression.

Aim:

The article aims to review the clinical shreds of evidence regarding the use of DBT to treat depression.

Methods:

PubMed literature search was done by applying the year filter range, 2010 to 2021. Another filter applied was "Randomized controlled trial", so that the strength of evidence could be enhanced. The keywords used were "Dialectical Behavior Therapy" AND "Depression

Results:

33 articles were found, out of which only 20 relevant articles were reviewed. DBT was found to alleviate depressive symptoms associated with different psychological disorders like bipolar disorder and BPD but the number of studies that validated the afore-mentioned were less than those studies which showed that DBT had no significant effect on the patients with depressive difficulties. The long-term effect of DBT for treating depression is under a suspect, as studies showed DBT got ineffective during the follow-ups

Conclusion:

DBT shows benefits in depression but further studies are still required to validate this concretely as DBT did not show a significant effect when compared to its control counterparts. There is much need for future studies which can evaluate the long-term efficacy of DBT in depression is another challenging area because follow-up data did not favor DBT.

Psychosocial interventions for self-harm in adults

BACKGROUND

Self-harm (SH; intentional self-poisoning or self-injury regardless of degree of suicidal intent or other types of motivation) is a growing problem in most counties, often repeated, and associated with suicide. There has been a substantial increase in both the number of trials and therapeutic approaches of psychosocial interventions for SH in adults. This review therefore updates a previous Cochrane Review (last published in 2016) on the role of psychosocial interventions in the treatment of SH in adults.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the effects of psychosocial interventions for self-harm (SH) compared to comparison types of care (e.g. treatment-as-usual, routine psychiatric care, enhanced usual care, active comparator) for adults (aged 18 years or older) who engage in SH.

SEARCH METHODS

We searched the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Specialised Register, the Cochrane Library (Central Register of Controlled Trials [CENTRAL] and Cochrane Database of Systematic reviews [CDSR]), together with MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, and PsycINFO (to 4 July 2020).

SELECTION CRITERIA

We included all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing interventions of specific psychosocial treatments versus treatment-as-usual (TAU), routine psychiatric care, enhanced usual care (EUC), active comparator, or a combination of these, in the treatment of adults with a recent (within six months of trial entry) episode of SH resulting in presentation to hospital or clinical services. The primary outcome was the occurrence of a repeated episode of SH over a maximum follow-up period of two years. Secondary outcomes included treatment adherence, depression, hopelessness, general functioning, social functioning, suicidal ideation, and suicide.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

We independently selected trials, extracted data, and appraised trial quality. For binary outcomes, we calculated odds ratio (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). For continuous outcomes, we calculated mean differences (MDs) or standardised mean differences (SMDs) and 95% CIs. The overall quality of evidence for the primary outcome (i.e. repetition of SH at post-intervention) was appraised for each intervention using the GRADE approach.

MAIN RESULTS

We included data from 76 trials with a total of 21,414 participants. Participants in these trials were predominately female (61.9%) with a mean age of 31.8 years (standard deviation [SD] 11.7 years). On the basis of data from four trials, individual cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)-based psychotherapy may reduce repetition of SH as compared to TAU or another comparator by the end of the intervention (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.12 to 1.02; N = 238; k = 4; GRADE: low certainty evidence), although there was imprecision in the effect estimate. At longer follow-up time points (e.g., 6- and 12-months) there was some evidence that individual CBT-based psychotherapy may reduce SH repetition. Whilst there may be a slightly lower rate of SH repetition for dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) (66.0%) as compared to TAU or alternative psychotherapy (68.2%), the evidence remains uncertain as to whether DBT reduces absolute repetition of SH by the post-intervention assessment. On the basis of data from a single trial, mentalisation-based therapy (MBT) reduces repetition of SH and frequency of SH by the post-intervention assessment (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.73; N = 134; k = 1; GRADE: high-certainty evidence). A group-based emotion-regulation psychotherapy may also reduce repetition of SH by the post-intervention assessment based on evidence from two trials by the same author group (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.88; N = 83; k = 2; moderate-certainty evidence). There is probably little to no effect for different variants of DBT on absolute repetition of SH, including DBT group-based skills training, DBT individual skills training, or an experimental form of DBT in which participants were given significantly longer cognitive exposure to stressful events. The evidence remains uncertain as to whether provision of information and support, based on the Suicide Trends in At-Risk Territories (START) and the SUicide-PREvention Multisite Intervention Study on Suicidal behaviors (SUPRE-MISS) models, have any effect on repetition of SH by the post-intervention assessment. There was no evidence of a difference for psychodynamic psychotherapy, case management, general practitioner (GP) management, remote contact interventions, and other multimodal interventions, or a variety of brief emergency department-based interventions.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS

Overall, there were significant methodological limitations across the trials included in this review. Given the moderate or very low quality of the available evidence, there is only uncertain evidence regarding a number of psychosocial interventions for adults who engage in SH. Psychosocial therapy based on CBT approaches may result in fewer individuals repeating SH at longer follow-up time points, although no such effect was found at the post-intervention assessment and the quality of evidence, according to the GRADE criteria, was low. Given findings in single trials, or trials by the same author group, both MBT and group-based emotion regulation therapy should be further developed and evaluated in adults. DBT may also lead to a reduction in frequency of SH. Other interventions were mostly evaluated in single trials of moderate to very low quality such that the evidence relating to the use of these interventions is inconclusive at present.

Implementation and Evaluation of a Military-Civilian Partnership to Train Mental Health Specialists

INTRODUCTION

Mental health specialists (MHS, or 68X) play a central role in meeting the growing demand for combat stress care among Service Members. Partnering with civilian institutions may enhance the MHS training experience beyond Advanced Individual Training (AIT).

METHODS

We describe a novel military-civilian collaboration to train U.S. Army Reserve MHS's in the psychiatric emergency service (PES) of a public, safety-net hospital. Details of implementation are described. The training rotation was evaluated after 1 year through a comprehensive chart abstraction of patients seen as well as surveys of MHS's and civilian partners.

RESULTS

The roles of MHS and physician officers in this rotation are described. Over 9 days in the PES, the MHS team evaluated 26 patients. MHS's described a high-quality training environment (83% rated very good or excellent) in which they frequently saw high-risk patients relevant to military practice. Experience with a certain patient presentation was correlated with comfort assessing and managing that presentation (p < 0.01). Many civilian staff (40%) felt the PES operated better with the presence of the Army team and 50% of civilians agreed their impression of the U.S. Army Reserve improved as a result of the partnership. Hundred percent of specialists and 80% of civilians reported very good to excellent rapport between military and civilian staff. Two civilian respondents (11%) expressed concern that the military team's presence impeded patient care.

CONCLUSION

This is the first military-civilian training collaboration for behavioral health specialists, who have already completed AIT. This program provided well-received and mission-relevant training for MHS's without notable adverse effects on patient care or team functioning in a civilian environment. Our findings are based on a small sample size, and no other such programs exist against which to compare these results. We propose that such educational partnerships, which have long been effective for other clinical specialists, may benefit the military, civilian communities, and the country.

Creating a Flexible Outpatient Mental Health Transitions Program

Limited resources to support persons with mental illness create a crisis in our health care system. There is a shortage of inpatient beds, and emergency departments are overwhelmed by the number of persons experiencing a mental illness crisis. This article describes the design of a program to address the gaps in treatment. The goal of the program was to decrease the length of stay for inpatient mental health care and to divert emergency department patients. We describe the multidisciplinary brainstorming session that envisioned this program, how it differs from previous programs, the staffing model, curriculum, outcomes, and future plans.

A Single-session Crisis Intervention Therapy Model for Emergency Psychiatry

Presentations for anxiety and depression constitute the fastest growing category of mental health diagnoses seen in emergency departments (EDs). Even non-psychiatric clinicians must be prepared to provide psychotherapeutic interventions for these patients, just as they might provide motivational interviewing for a patient with substance use disorders. This case report of an 18-year-old woman with suicidal ideation illustrates the practicality and utility of a brief, single-session, crisis intervention model that facilitated discharge from the ED. This report will help practitioners to apply this model in their own practice and identify patients who may require psychiatric hospitalization.

Comparing brief interventions for suicidal individuals not engaged in treatment: A randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND

Non-treatment-engaged individuals experiencing suicidal thoughts have been largely overlooked in the intervention literature, despite reviews suggesting most individuals who die by suicide were not in treatment immediately prior to their death. Most intervention studies recruit individuals from treatment providers, potentially neglecting those individuals who are not already engaged in services. These individuals clearly represent a group in need of additional empirical attention.

METHODS

A randomized clinical trial was conducted to compare a single-session dialectical behavior therapy skills-based intervention to a relaxation training control condition. Ninety-three non-treatment-engaged subjects participated in a single in-person assessment, received one of the intervention protocols, and completed follow-up phone interviews for three months including measures of suicidal ideation, emotion dysregulation, and coping skills, as well as other relevant assessments.

RESULTS

Both conditions reported significantly reduced levels of suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety; however, analyses revealed no significant differences between conditions on the main outcome measures of suicidal ideation, emotion dysregulation, skills use, depression, or anxiety.

LIMITATIONS

The two interventions may have been too similar to permit detection of differential effects with this sample size. Specifically, the control condition may have been too active and there may have been stylistic overlap by providers who delivered both interventions.

CONCLUSIONS

Encouragingly, half of subjects contacted other mental health services during the follow-up period. Although the two interventions under investigation did not yield differential results, the significant changes in important domains across interventions suggest that brief interventions may hold promise for this difficult-to-reach population.