Service user experiences of MBT for borderline personality disorder
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Experiencing intensive out-patient mentalisation-based treatment for difficulties associated with borderline personality disorder: Service user perspectives
IRAS ID
135328
Contact name
Diarmaid Ó Lonargáin
Contact email
Research summary
Mentalisation-based treatment (MBT) is a therapeutic programme that was designed for individuals with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The design of MBT draws on the idea that childhood trauma leads to a disrupted capacity to mentalise, which involves the ability to understand one’s own mental states, such as thoughts and feelings, and the mental states of others. Enhancing the capacity to mentalise is thus the main focus of MBT. MBT is a manualised approach and two separate programmes were devised for BPD: a day hospital programme and an intensive out-patient programme . This study aims to explore how individuals who have been attending an intensive out-patient programme for BPD for between 2 and 15 months experience MBT. If enough participants are not recruited, this will be expanded to include individuals who have been attending a programme for more than 15 months and individuals who stopped attending a programme no longer than 12 months prior to the research interview provided they attended for at least 2 months.
Participants will meet the chief investigator for an interview lasting approximately 60 minutes either within a NHS site or in a suitable room in the local community, such as in a GP service. It is hoped that this will help services to have a better understanding of the needs and experiences of those who participate in MBT programmes, and that this will help them to meet those needs more effectively. Also, it is hoped that this research will help service users to have a better understanding of what it is like to take part in a MBT programme before deciding whether they feel it would be a useful support for them. The research may also provide suggestions for improving MBT as a therapy. The study will be completed by June 2014.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/NW/0636
Date of REC Opinion
26 Sep 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion