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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV1053

Reduction in internalized stigma following dialectical behavior therapy in patients with borderline personality disorder: a preliminary longitudinal study from Chile

REDUCTION OF SELF-STIGMA IN PATIENTS WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER FOLLOWING DIALETICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY: A PRELIMINARY LONGITUDINAL STUDY FROM CHILE

After three months of dialectical behavior therapy, internalized stigma decreased significantly, with a large effect size, in patients with borderline personality disorder, accompanied by improvements in borderline, posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and dissociation symptoms.

The study aimed to examine changes in internalized stigma (self-stigma), which is associated with a poorer clinical course and delayed recovery in borderline personality disorder (BPD), during an online dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) program. This longitudinal study used paired baseline and 3-month data from 9 participants; assessments covered internalized stigma (Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness, ISMI), posttraumatic stress symptoms (PCL-5; ITQ-PTSD), disturbances in self-organization (ITQ-DSO), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), dissociation (DES-II), and borderline symptoms (BSL-23 emotional and behavioral). Paired t-tests, percentage change, Cohen’s dz, and the Reliable Change Index were calculated, and associations between changes in ISMI and changes in other variables were examined using exploratory Pearson correlations. Internalized stigma decreased significantly from baseline to month 3 (2.26 ± 0.36 versus 1.88 ± 0.50; mean change = -0.38; -16.8%; dz = -1.92; p < .001); all 9 participants had lower ISMI scores at follow-up, and 6 of the 9 patients showed reliable improvement. Significant reductions were also observed in other domains after three months of DBT: BSL-23 emotional -47.0% (p = .007), PHQ-9 -46.9% (p = .005), PCL-5 -34.9% (p = .004), ITQ-PTSD -32.7% (p = .037), GAD-7 -31.0% (p = .041), DES-II -30.7% (p = .020), and ITQ-DSO -29.1% (p = .002). Exploratory associations between changes in ISMI and changes in other clinical variables did not reach statistical significance, with the strongest associations observed for BSL-23 behavioral (r = .62, p = .077), BSL-23 emotional (r = .59, p = .097), and ITQ-DSO (r = .56, p = .118). The poster states that the analyses were recalculated from participant-level paired data before presentation and that these corrected estimates supersede the preliminary statistics in the published abstract. In conclusion, three months of DBT was associated with a significant reduction in internalized stigma, alongside improvements in BPD emotional symptoms, posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety, dissociation, and disturbances in self-organization; these preliminary findings support further investigation of internalized stigma as a clinically meaningful and modifiable dimension of BPD treatment.

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