A Feasibility Study to Evaluate Self-Harm Group in Inpatient Settings
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Feasibility Study to Evaluate Self-Harm Group in Inpatient Settings
IRAS ID
205350
Contact name
Sarah Fife
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Essex
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Deliberate self-harm has been defined as self-inflicted damage that alters body tissue (Gratz, 2003). The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) (2014) recommend that self-harm should be treated as a priority. Therefore, it is surprising that research has not found conclusive evidence to support a treatment solely for adults who harm themselves (Turner, Austin & Chapman, 2014; Winter et al., 2007), particularly those who are detained in inpatient settings. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) (Linehan, 1991) involves skills that help people manage their emotions and tolerate distress. This therapy has been found effective in reducing self-harm behaviour for outpatients with Borderline Personality Disorder (Linehan, 1993a). More recently, Gibson et al. (2014) evaluated a 6-week, DBT-based group for self-harm, demonstrating promising results, but this was an uncontrolled study and the intervention is longer than the average stay on an inpatient ward (23 days; Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2014). As such, there is currently no evidence-based treatment for self-harm in inpatient settings. The current research is being undertaken as part of a professional doctorate in clinical psychology, which aims to evaluate the feasibility of a group programme to address self-harm within 23 days, to provide evidence for a controlled trial. The intervention will include four group sessions conducted over 2 weeks, based on DBT (Linehan, 1991). Specifically the aims are to determine 1) means and a standard deviation for two pre and post treatment outcome measures in order to estimate sample size for the main study, 2) the need for an inpatient intervention for self-harm measured by number of participants eligible and accepting of the treatment, 3) retention of participants for 4 groups given the predicted short stays of patients on wards, and 4) the acceptability of the research process for this client group through feedback.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EE/0001
Date of REC Opinion
9 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion