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ViewAttendees 2

Symposia

Treatment - Other

Increasing access to evidence-based psychotherapy to promote healthcare equity: Training, implementing, and adapting Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in the real world

1 - (SYM 5) Increasing Veteran Access to Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Providing DBT via Telehealth in Department of Veteran Affairs' Clinical Resource Hubs

Friday, November 15, 2024
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM EST
Location: 401/402, Level 4, Downtown Marriott
Abstract Body

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan 1993) is an evidence-based psychotherapy recommended by the 2019 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DOD) clinical practice guidelines for the assessment and management of patients at risk for suicide, particularly for individuals with recent self-directed violence and Borderline Personality Disorder. DBT is a multimodal therapy that includes weekly individual therapy, weekly skills group, weekly therapist consultation team, and as needed phone coaching. Treatment generally lasts one year (~182 hours of group and individual therapy). DBT can be difficult to implement. Barriers to implementation include limited staffing and staff turnover (Carmel et al., 2014; Landes et al., 2017), lack of leadership support (Carmel et al., 2014; Flynn et al., 2020; Swales et al., 2012), insufficient time to do DBT (Carmel et al., 2014), limited resources for training, and difficulty being able to block time for therapist consultation team (Landes et al., 2017).

To increase access to suicide prevention care, the VA’s Suicide Prevention 2.0 (SP 2.0) Clinical Telehealth Program is a nation-wide virtual initiative implementing and evaluating Evidence-Based Psychotherapy for Suicide Prevention (EBP-SP) for US Veterans. The EBP-SPs include DBT along with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT-SP) and Problem Solving Therapy (PST-SP). To support this initiative, competency-based training programs were developed for each EBP by subject matter experts. This presentation will describe the development, refinement, and implementation of the DBT training program within SP 2.0. Therapist outcome data and the ways in which these data have influenced the training programs will be discussed, along with data on number of Veterans served and their preliminary treatment outcomes.