Family connections versus optimised treatment-as-usual for family members of individuals with borderline personality disorder: non-randomised controlled study

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dc.contributor.authorFlynn, Daniel
dc.contributor.authorKells, Mary
dc.contributor.authorJoyce, Mary
dc.contributor.authorCorcoran, Paul
dc.contributor.authorHerley, Sarah
dc.contributor.authorSuarez, Catalina
dc.contributor.authorCotter, Padraig
dc.contributor.authorHurley, Justina
dc.contributor.authorWeihrauch, Mareike
dc.contributor.authorGroeger, John
dc.contributor.funderHealth Service Executive
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-18T09:40:14Z
dc.date.available2017-10-18T09:40:14Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstractBorderline personality disorder (BPD) is challenging for family members who are often required to fulfil multiple roles such as those of advocate, caregiver, coach and guardian. To date, two uncontrolled studies by the treatment developers suggest that Family Connections (FC) is an effective programme to support, educate and teach skills to family members of individuals with BPD. However, such studies have been limited by lack of comparison to other treatment approaches. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of FC with an optimised treatment-as-usual (OTAU) programme for family members of individuals with BPD. A secondary aim was to introduce a long term follow-up to investigate if positive gains from the intervention would be maintained following programme completion. Methods: This study was a non-randomised controlled study, with assessment of outcomes at baseline (preintervention) and end of programme (post-intervention) for both FC and OTAU groups, and at follow-up (3 months post-intervention; 12 or 19 months post-intervention) for the FC group. Eighty family members participated in the FC (n = 51) and the OTAU (n = 29) programmes. Outcome measures included burden, grief, depression and mastery. Linear mixed-effects models were used to assess baseline differences in the outcome measures by gender, age group and type of relationship to the individual with BPD. Linear mixed-effects models were also used to estimate the treatment effect (FC versus OTAU) utilising all available data from baseline and end of programme. Results: The FC group showed changes indicating significant improvement with respect to all four outcome measures (p < 0.001). The OTAU group showed changes in the same direction as the intervention group but none of the changes were statistically significant. The intervention effect was statistically significant for total burden (including both subscales; p = .02 for subjective burden and p = .048 for objective burden) and grief (p = 0.013). Improvements were maintained at follow-up for FC participants. Conclusions: The findings of the current study indicate that FC results in statistically significant improvements on key measures while OTAU does not yield comparable changes. Lack of significant change on all measures for OTAU suggests that a three session psycho-education programme is of limited benefit. Further research is warranted on programme components and long-term supports for family members.en
dc.description.sponsorshipHealth Service Executive (National Office for Suicide Prevention)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleid18
dc.identifier.citationFlynn, D., Kells, M., Joyce, M., Corcoran, P., Herley, S., Suarez, C., Cotter, P., Hurley, J., Weihrauch, M. and Groeger, J. (2017) 'Family Connections versus optimised treatment-as-usual for family members of individuals with borderline personality disorder: non-randomised controlled study', Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 4, 18. doi: 10.1186/s40479-017-0069-1en
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/s40479-017-0069-1
dc.identifier.endpage9
dc.identifier.issn2051-6673
dc.identifier.journaltitleBorderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulationen
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/4892
dc.identifier.volume4
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherBioMed Centralen
dc.relation.urihttps://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-017-0069-1
dc.rights© 2017, the Authors. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
dc.subjectBorderline personality disorderen
dc.subjectFamily Connectionsen
dc.subjectFamily membersen
dc.subjectSignificant othersen
dc.subjectEffectivenessen
dc.subjectLong-term follow upen
dc.subjectBurdenen
dc.subjectGriefen
dc.titleFamily connections versus optimised treatment-as-usual for family members of individuals with borderline personality disorder: non-randomised controlled studyen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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