Online emotion regulation therapy may significantly reduce adolescent self-injury

There is a high prevalence of Nonsuicidal self-injury in adolescence. This is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. There is a lack of Effective interventions that are brief, transportable, and scalable.

Considering this background, researchers tested the hypotheses that an internet-delivered emotion regulation individual therapy for adolescents delivered adjunctive to treatment, as usual, is superior to treatment as usual only in reducing nonsuicidal self-injury and that improvements in emotion regulation mediate these treatment effects.

The critical points of the study are:

• The study population was 12 boys and 154 girls, with a mean age of 15. These were adolescents with nonsuicidal self-injury disorder and past month self-injury.
• The study location was three mental health sites in Sweden.
• One hundred sixty-six were randomized: 84 to Internet-delivered emotion regulation individual therapy for adolescents (IERITA) plus treatment as usual for 12 weeks.
• Eighty-two were randomized to treatment as usual (TAU).
• The primary outcome was the youth version of the Deliberate self-harm inventory, self-reported by participants and clinician-rated by masked assessors.
• IERITA plus TAU group had a significantly more significant reduction (82 %) in masked assessor-rated nonsuicidal self-injury frequency compared to a 47% reduction in treatment as usual. The difference was statistically significant.

They said we recorded the efficacy of 12-week, therapist-guided, internet-delivered emotion regulation therapy delivered adjunctive to treatment as usual in reducing self-injury.

Our study supports the theorized role of emotion regulation as the mechanism of change in this treatment.

Further reading:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807193