Group psychotherapy for older adults with personality disorders: effectiveness and costs

INTERVENTION: Group Schema Focused Therapy enriched with psychomotor therapy will be delivered in eighteen weekly and two follow‐up sessions (at weeks 22 and 26), consisting of 2h group Schema Focused Therapy and 1h psychomotor therapy. Group Schema Focused Therapy focusses on the cognitive behavioural techniques of schema therapy. To overcome the limitations of a purely verbal therapy, psychomotor therapy is added, in which physical exercises are set up to facilitate the experience of patients’ typical cognitions and behaviours. For the control group, treatment as usual is unrestricted. CONDITION: Mental problems, Personality disorder ; ; PRIMARY OUTCOME: Primary outcome is psychological distress, as assessed with the Brief Symptom Inventory‐ 53 item version (BSI‐53).; For cost‐effectiveness analysis, health related quality of life is assessed with the EuroQoL; EQ‐5D‐5L, and medical consumption and other cost data are gathered by structured patient interview. SECONDARY OUTCOME: Secondary outcome measures are: 1) life satisfaction, 2) mental wellbeing, 3) personality functioning, 4) interoceptive body awareness, 5) psychotropic drug use and treatment received, and 6) mood variability. INCLUSION CRITERIA: ‐ Age 60 years or older. ‐ Cluster B or C personality or meeting the general diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder falling short one content criterion for a specific cluster B or C personality disorder. ‐ Mentally able to adhere to the group schema‐focused treatment schedule and to fill out schema (mode) questionnaires. ‐ Informed consent after having received oral and written information.