Impact of Co-delivered Foundational Borderline Personality Disorder Training on Clinician Attitudes and Skills Over Time
Year: 2026
Type: study-registration
Abstract: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a highly stigmatised mental illness, with individuals diagnosed with BPD reporting experiences of discrimination from clinicians in health service settings (Klein et al., 2022). Studies have shown that training workshops aimed at reducing stigma towards people with a BPD diagnosis can lead to reduced stigma in clinicians, thereby increasing practice and improving quality of care for clients with a BPD diagnosis (Wright et al., 2025; Klein et al., 2022; Krawitz, 2004). This may lead to reduced mistreatment, misdiagnosis, and marginalised care for clients with a BPD diagnosis (Estric et al., 2026). Few studies have incorporated training with a lived experience expert (LEE); thus, this study will identify the impact of LEEs in participants’ training outcomes. Whilst short-term impact of clinician training for BPD has been well established, there is limited research into the long-term training outcomes (Klein et al., 2022). Although pre-post attitudinal change can reflect meaningful short-term influence, long-term findings will identify whether this change was maintained once training outcomes were applied in practice. This long-term result will identify potential barriers to applying the recommended skills and attitudes in clinical settings and whether real-world experiences override or support the theoretical knowledge gained in the training. This study aims to identify clinically significant and reliable changes in clinician empathy, and whether the changes are maintained over time. This study includes data gathered by Wright et al. (2025) (n= 694) and builds upon this dataset by extending the collection period through to July 2026. This combined dataset will result in a larger sample (n= 2283) that also includes a set of follow-up responses (n= 108) to observe changes at a long-term timepoint (Klein et al., 2022). Participant empathy was measured via The Borderline Patients Emotional Attitudes Inventory - Empathy subscale (Black et al., 2011). This scale is designed to measure feelings of empathy towards patients with a BPD diagnosis. The scale used in this study draws from the BPEAI to create a 3-item sub-scale with responses scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ (=1) to ‘Strongly agree’ (=5) (Bodner et al., 2011). Treatment optimism and personal competence were also measured in this study, with 3 items utilised in the treatment optimism subscale which recorded responses on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Strongly disagree’ (=1) to ‘Strongly agree’ (=5) (Black et al., 2011). This results in a total score ranging from 3-15 with higher scores indicating greater treatment optimism. The Attitude and Skills Questionnaire (ASQ) is a 6-item measure that was used to assess self-ratings of personal competence toward working with people with a BPD diagnosis (Bodner et al., 2011). The item related to treatment optimism from the original scale was not included, as the content of the item overlapped with the content of the optimism subscale. Training participants self-reported attitudes and perceived competence when working with people with a BPD diagnosis. The total ASQ score ranged between 5 and 25, with higher scores indicating greater perceived personal competence working with people with a diagnosis of BPD (Krawitz, 2004).
Source: Open Science Framework
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7208820242