Effectiveness of a Brief Dialectical Behavior Therapy Intensive-Outpatient Community Health Program

Clinical Impact Statement Question: Do diagnostically diverse clients experience positive outcomes from participating in a brief, DBT-adapted intensive-outpatient community mental health program? Findings: The average participant, regardless of program completion status, experienced reductions in depression, anxiety, stress, and difficulties with emotion regulation, also increases in mindfulness and hope between program entry and program exit. Meaning: Brief DBT may be an effective tool for community mental health care centers who prioritize short-term care. Next Steps: Future investigations should include further evaluation of therapist adherence, posttreatment outcomes, and control groups to better assess brief DBT community mental health outcomes. Standard dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), with its 12-month format, has a documented record of efficacy. While emerging evidence is supportive of DBT adaptations in community mental health settings and brief, intensive formats, many of these studies are limited by sample size of its DBT group, by omission of program completion rates and specific data from program noncompleters, and by focusing solely on symptom-focused measures-which inadvertently omits observing gains associated with well-being. We used a nonexperimental design to assess client outcomes on pathology-focused and positive-psychology measures in a brief DBT intensive-outpatient Community Mental Health Center in the midwestern United States for program graduates and program dropouts who completed at least two surveys (n = 77). This is the shortest average program length (M = 19.01 days) known for a DBT program. Scores on measures of depression (d = 0.41), anxiety (d = 0.5), stress (d = 0.5), and difficulties in emotion regulation (d = 0.51) all decreased from entrance to exit. Scores on measures of mindfulness (d = 0.43), Snyder's hope (d = 0.51), and integrative hope (d = 0.41) increased from entrance to exit. These results provide evidence that pathology decreases and measures associated with well-being increase in this brief, intensive-outpatient community health DBT program. This study provides support for future investigations of brief, intensive community health programs.