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Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Group for Personality Disorders: Preliminary Results from a Pilot Study in a Public Mental Health Setting

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Abstract

To build the evidence for a randomized controlled trial, a pilot study was conducted to investigate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of a group-psychotherapy based on Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy (MIT-G) for patients with personality disorders (PDs). Ten outpatients with PD diagnoses were offered 16 sessions of MIT-G delivered in group format. Effect sizes were calculated for changes from baseline to treatment end for clinical symptoms, interpersonal difficulties, and metacognition. Nine patients finished the full treatment protocol with nonsignificant large effect sizes obtained for change in depression, metacognition, impulsiveness and interpersonal problems measures. This is the first study suggesting that MIT-G is acceptable to outpatients across the spectrum of PDs and is associated with improvements in clinical symptoms, social functioning and metacognition. Despite the limitations of a pilot study, evidence of MIT-G effectiveness was sufficient to warrant further investigation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Servicio Riojano de Salud, Logroño, Spain

    Felix Inchausti

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Felix Inchausti

  3. Department of Mental Health, Servicio Navarro de Salud-Osasunbidea, Pamplona, Spain

    Laura Moreno-Campos

  4. Department of Mental Health, Servicio Aragonés de Salud, Saragossa, Spain

    Javier Prado-Abril

  5. Department of Mental Health, Servicio Murciano de Salud, Murcia, Spain

    Sergio Sánchez-Reales

  6. Department of Educational Sciences, University of La Rioja, Logroño, Spain

    Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero

  7. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

    Angus MacBeth

  8. Centro di Terapia Metacognitiva Interpersonale, Piazza dei Martiri di Belfiore, 4, 00195, Rome, Italy

    Raffaele Popolo & Giancarlo Dimaggio

Authors
  1. Felix Inchausti
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  2. Laura Moreno-Campos
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  3. Javier Prado-Abril
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  4. Sergio Sánchez-Reales
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  5. Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero
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  6. Angus MacBeth
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  7. Raffaele Popolo
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  8. Giancarlo Dimaggio
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giancarlo Dimaggio.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Informed Consent

This study was conducted in compliance with local regulations and internationally established principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (64th World Medical Association General Assemble, Fortaleza, Brazil, 2013). The Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Rioja Salud approved the study and protocol. Before inclusion, all patients were required to sign an informed consent form.

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Inchausti, F., Moreno-Campos, L., Prado-Abril, J. et al. Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy in Group for Personality Disorders: Preliminary Results from a Pilot Study in a Public Mental Health Setting. J Contemp Psychother 50, 197–203 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-020-09453-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-020-09453-9

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