Investigating the Impacts of Family involvement on the Effectiveness of Short-term Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to improve adolescent Girls with Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of family involvement in short term Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) on female adolescents with borderline personality disorder symptoms. Adolescent girls from the 4th municipal region of Mashhad from 9th to 11th grade in 2017 academic year, about 1458 scales (BPFS-C) were administered and 280 subjects with higher cut-off scores detected. A sample of 46 girls were then selected. The inclusion criteria were: age range of 16-18, living with family, and agreement of mother for participation in the treatment, and exclusion criteria of other physical and/or psychological disorders were controlled for. Subjects were ran-domly divided to three groups: 1- Expe-riment 1 (female adolescents) 2- Expe-riment 2 (female adolescent + mothers) and 3- Control group. Both experimental groups received DBT for 12 sessions, while control group had no intervention. Three groups completed the BPFS-C at post-test, and follow-up stages. The data analyzed by repeated measure analysis of variance and clinically significance for-mula. No significant statistical differences were observed for experimental groups. However indices of clinically significant changes were observed for two groups and in the second group with mother participation robust therapeutic effects were detected. The components of emotional instability, identity problems, negative relationships, and self-concept showed considerable changes after DBT intervention. It could be concluded that DBT was effective intervention for adolescent girls with BPD symptoms and mother presence in their therapy could increase the therapeutic effects. Presence of family in the treatment is recommended to clinician in work with BPD adolescents