Early intervention for adolescents with borderline personality disorder: quasi-experimental comparison with treatment as usual

Objective: The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of specialized team-based early intervention for borderline personality disorder (BPD) with treatment as usual.Method: In a quasi-experimental design, 32 outpatients who received historical treatment as usual (H-TAU) were compared with 78 participants from a recently published randomized controlled trial of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT; n = 41) versus manualized good clinical care (GCC; n = 37), conducted in a specialized early intervention service for BPD (the Helping Young People Early (HYPE) programme). All participants were 15–18-year-old outpatients who fulfilled 2–9 DSM-IV BPD criteria. It was predicted that, compared with H-TAU, HYPE + GCC and HYPE + CAT would show greater reductions in psychopathology and parasuicidal behaviour and greater improvement in global functioning over 24months.Results: At 24month follow up: (i) HYPE + CAT had lower standardized levels of, and a significantly faster standardized rate of improvemen...