Objective: Investigation of the clinical effectiveness of dialectical behavioral therapy in a day clinic setting (DBT-DC) for borderline personality disorders (BPD), and impact of medication and daily costs.
Methods: In a prospective, naturalistic, open and uncontrolled design BPD patients were enclosed in a 12-week DBT-DC. This DBT-program was certified by the German network of DBT. We collected data from the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Borderline Symptom List 95 (BSL-95) in the first and at the end of the 11th week. The concomitant medication and its changes were described.
Results: 31 cases were included (9 drop-outs: 29 %). The average age was 33.3 years (18 - 52, SD = 10.6). 21 females and one male completed the program. There was no relationship between changes of BDI, SCL-90 and BSL-95 scores (p < 0.001) and medication (and its alteration). The BDI scores improved by 50.8 % (p < 0.001), the SCL-90 by 42.9 % (p < 0.01) and the BSL-95 by 48.4 % (p < 0.001). The power was 0.99 (α = 0.05), the effect size was 1.41. In our setting the daily costs showed a reduction of about 6500 € per case compared to an inpatient DBT. Medications played no significant role for improvement.
Conclusions: For the first time a partial remission for BPD patients after 12 weeks has been shown to be achieved in a DBT-DC setting. DBT-DC reduces the primary costs of BPD compared to a specific inpatient therapy.
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