Background
Patients with co-morbid substance use disorder (SUD) and personality disorder (PD) do generally not get access to tailored treatment for their difficulties, despite national guidelines that recommend personality focused treatments. While evidence-based treatments for dual PD/SUD are largely lacking within the drug addiction health services, mental health services have implemented personality focused treatment programs throughout all regions in Norway. This gap in treatment availability for people with SUD exists despite a striking co-morbidity; about half of all patients with SUD suffer from combined PD. Research investigating effective treatment programs and specificities of treatment processes for PD/SUD, are warranted.
Aims
The overall aim of this project is to provide new evidence into a current knowledge gap concerning the largest patient group among SUD patients by establishing clinical research focusing on dual PD/SUD. We aim to answer the following question: Is MBT-SUD more efficient than treatment as usual and personality focused treatment for patients with PD/ SUD on clinical and social functioning outcome variables.
Methods
Cross-sectional comparisons PD alone vs PD/SUD
This study is a cross sectional comparative study of PD alone (N=1428) vs PD/SUD (n = 272) on various outcomes of personality (SCID-5-PD and LPFS-BF), mental health (GAD-7, PHQ-9), aggression (MOAS), social functioning (WSAS, EQ-5-D) and health services costs (forms developed by The Network). Analyses will be performed with one-way ANOVA and T-tests for comparison of baseline data.
Treatment effectivity
This study is a naturalistic prospective and retrospective cohort design to investigate treatment trajectories of patients with PD/SUD enrolled in personality focused treatment programs in Norway in mental health care (N = 1663), personality focused treatment within addiction health services (N= 60) and treatment as usual within addiction health services (N=60).
Two cohorts of data were collected in the period of 2017-2022 and based on the data from the TREATPD study. The TREATPD study is a large, multi-center research project implemented within the Norwegian Network for Personality Disorders, in 2022 the data are ready for analyses, N= 1700. Additionally, new data will be collected and added to the cohort the next three years, n= 83. Analyses of longitudinal data analyses will be performed with linear mixed models. We will also perform moderator models investigating if treatment condition moderates the interaction alliance x time for PD/SUD patients.
Contact
Katharina T. E. Morken, PhD
Phone: 907 39 201
E-mail: katharina.morken@uib.no / kthm@helse-bergen.no
Collaborators
Katharina T. E. Morken, Benjamin Hummelen, Geir Pedersen, Elfrida Kvarstein, Ingeborg Helene Ulltveit-Moe Eikenæs, Helge Molde, Morten Øvrebø, Elisabeth Gikling, Ove Vestheim, Anthony Bateman.
Fundings
This project has received funding from Helse Vest’s Research Funding 2024, Clinical Researcher Fellowships.