Learning from Adolescents and Caregivers to Enhance Acceptability and Engagement Within Virtual Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents Skills Groups: A Qualitative Study

Kristina Conroy; Sabrina M Kehrer; Christopher Georgiadis; Megan Hare; Vanesa Mora Ringle; Ashley M Shaw

doi:10.1007/s10578-023-01641-7

Learning from Adolescents and Caregivers to Enhance Acceptability and Engagement Within Virtual Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents Skills Groups: A Qualitative Study

Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2024 Jan 6. doi: 10.1007/s10578-023-01641-7. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kristina Conroy^{1

2}, Sabrina M Kehrer³, Christopher Georgiadis^{3

4}, Megan Hare^{5

6}, Vanesa Mora Ringle⁷, Ashley M Shaw⁸

Affiliations

¹ Center for Children and Families, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA. kconr007@fiu.edu.
² Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. kconr007@fiu.edu.
³ Center for Children and Families, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.
⁴ The Warren Alpert Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA.
⁶ Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁷ Counseling Psychology Program, Department of Education and Human Services, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.
⁸ School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of New England, Biddeford, ME, USA.

PMID: 38183575
DOI: 10.1007/s10578-023-01641-7

Abstract

Despite the significant increase in adolescent mental health challenges in recent years, structural barriers continue to limit access to and engagement in mental health services. As such, opportunities to learn directly from adolescents and their families on how to best structure and deliver services are paramount. The current study assumes a multi-informant approach and reports on adolescents' and caregivers' (N = 33) experiences in an adapted telehealth/hybrid Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A) program. Focus groups were conducted across two cohorts of families who participated in DBT-A skills groups, to collect family-centered data on the acceptability of program modifications, engagement in the adapted telehealth/hybrid DBT-A, and recommendations for improvement. Participants were predominately Latine White and were from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Additionally, 45.5% of the adolescents identified as LGBTQ + . Focus group findings emphasized how the telehealth platform was both convenient and disengaging, and how in-person sessions offered improved group connection and content engagement. Participants underscored the importance of balancing multi-family group sessions with adolescent- and caregiver-only group sessions in the program, and adolescents emphasized a need for the DBT-A program to better center adolescents' unique experiences and voices throughout sessions. Both adolescents and caregivers suggested modifications to synthesize the content and improve generalizability of the DBT-A skills to their real lives. Overall, these findings add to a new and evolving branch of DBT-A qualitative inquiry, as well as the growing body of work that recommends incorporating the voices of people with lived experiences into the development and modification of psychological services.

Keywords: Dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents; Patient-centered program feedback; Qualitative methods; Telehealth and hybrid group therapy; Treatment acceptability.