A Smartphone Application of "Family Connections" to Relatives of People With Borderline Personality Disorder.

Universitat Jaume I

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Relatives

Treatments: Behavioral: Family Connections program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05215392

UJaumeI22-1

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aims of our study are the following: (a) testing the effectiveness of a combined intervention: "Family Connections" program with a smartphone app versus the same intervention supported by a paper-based manual, (b) studying the feasibility and acceptance of both conditions and (c) evaluating the perceptions and opinions of families about both interventions.

Full description

Family members of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often experience high levels of suffering, anxiety, stress, burden and helplessness. The treatment program with the most empirical support is "Family Connections". It is one of the first programs specifically designed to help relatives of patients with BPD. The program is an adaptation of multiple strategies of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. The results of these studies and their subsequent replications showed an improvement in family attitudes and perceived burden. Two of the technologies with very promising developments are Ecological Momentary Assessment and Ecological Momentary Intervention, that can act on each other. A large number of smartphone apps for people with psychological problems focus on the provision of instructions, adaptive self-help strategies, alarms, electronic diaries or emotional state ratings. The Family Connections app proposed in this article consists of a smartphone app built using EMA and EMI technologies.The aims of our study are the following: (a) testing the effectiveness of a combined intervention: "Family Connections" program with a smartphone app versus the same intervention supported by a paper-based manual, (b) studying the feasibility and acceptance of both conditions and (c) evaluating the perceptions and opinions of families about both interventions.

Enrollment: 116 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Having a family member diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
• Being 18 years of age or older.
• Knowing and understanding the Spanish language.
• Having a smartphone with Internet connection.
• Completing the informed consent.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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116 participants in 2 patient groups

Smartphone Application

Experimental group

Description:

Family members in the experimental group of this study will receive an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) derived from an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via the Family Connections smartphone app.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Family Connections program

Treatment As Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

Family members in this condition will receive the manual of Family Connections which contains all the information on the program sessions conducted and the skills training strategies in writing.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Family Connections program