Effectiveness of education programs in changing clinicians' attitudes toward treating borderline personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE

This exploratory study was conducted in Australia and New Zealand and examined the impact of two types of education programs (cognitive-behavioral and psychoanalytic) on clinicians' attitude toward deliberate self-harm behaviors in borderline personality disorder and toward working with patients with this disorder.

METHODS

The Attitudes Towards Deliberate Self-Harm Questionnaire was used to assess the attitudes of mental health and emergency medicine clinicians (N=65) before and after attending an education program and at the six-month follow-up.

RESULTS

Compared with participants in the control group (N=22), participants in the cognitive-behavioral program (N=18) showed significant improvement in attitudes immediately after attending the program (p=.02), as did participants in the psychoanalytic education program (N=25) (p<.01). However, the six-month follow-up revealed that only the psychoanalytic education group maintained significant changes in attitude (p<.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Results are discussed in terms of the use of relatively brief educational interventions in facilitating enduring attitude change toward working with patients with borderline personality disorder.