The Efficacy of a Compassion Focused Therapy-based Intervention in Detained Youth
Condition: Psychopathic Personality Trait; Conduct Disorder; Delinquency
MeSH terms: Conduct Disorder; Antisocial Personality Disorder
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This non-randomized controlled trial with a control group aimed to assess the efficacy of a
      20-session individualized Compassion Focused Therapy-based intervention, the
      PSYCHOPATHY.COMP, in reducing psychopathic traits (primary outcomes), aggression, shame,
      emotion regulation problems, and fears of compassion, as well as in increasing social
      safeness, self-compassion, and compassion towards others (secondary outcomes). The
      PSYCHOPATHY.COMP's impact on psychophysiological (i.e., Heart Rate/Heart Rate Variability)
      and behavioral indicators (i.e., number disciplinary infractions and number of days in
      punishment) were also tested, in order to ascertain if changes observed in self-report
      questionnaires were reflected in more adjusted psychophysiological and behavioral patterns.
      Mental Health disorders, as well as the number of Conduct Disorder criteria, were also tested
      as moderators of treatment effects.
    

Detailed description: 
      This was a non-randomized controlled trial with a control group carried out in the six
      Portuguese juvenile detention facilities aimed to test the efficacy of an individual
      Compassion Focused-based intervention (the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program) in detained youth.

      The ethics committee of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University
      of Coimbra, the National Data Protection Agency, and the Portuguese Ministry of Justice
      approved the study's procedures. Portuguese juvenile detention facilities usually have no
      more than 150 detained youth (about 30 youth per juvenile detention facility), facing 6 to 36
      months of detention, around 10 youth enter and leave Portuguese juvenile detention facilities
      per month, which makes it difficult to randomly assign participants to conditions. To try to
      minimize this roadblock and to maximize time and human resources, the research team opted to
      assign the first 60 youth entering in the juvenile detention facilities during the research
      period to the treatment group and the following 60 youth to the control group. Participants
      in the treatment group attended the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program for about 6 months in addition
      to the treatment as usual (TAU) delivered at Portuguese juvenile detention facilities. The
      TAU in Portuguese juvenile detention facilities is primarily aimed to increase educational
      and professional qualifications, as well as to promote behavioral regulation and encompasses:
      school frequency, a token economy system for behavior control, the frequency of a
      cognitive-behavioral group program (the GPS-Growing Pro-Social; Rijo et al., 2007) and
      individual counseling sessions delivered by psychologists from the juvenile justice system
      (the treatment group would not attend these sessions). Participants in the control group
      received TAU, including the individual counseling sessions delivered by psychologists from
      the juvenile justice system, and did not attend the PSYCHOPATHY.COMP during the research
      period.

      Researchers invited detained youth to voluntarily participate in the study, explained its
      goals, and presented a brief overview of the intervention program. Confidentiality and
      anonymity were guaranteed. It was also explained to detained youth that their participation
      in the study would not impact on their sentencing/school grades in any possible way.
      Participants who agreed to participate gave written informed consent, in addition to their
      parents/legal guardians' written consent, and completed the baseline assessment. Participants
      in the control group were informed that they would benefit from the individualized counseling
      sessions by the psychologists from the juvenile detention facilities.

      Participants in the treatment group were assessed before the first session of the program
      (baseline assessment), right after its terminus (i.e., post-treatment assessment - about 6
      months after the baseline assessment), and 6 months after PSYCHOPATHY.COMP completion
      (follow-up assessment). Participants in the control group were assessed with the same time
      intervals. Independent research assistants blind to condition assignment participated in data
      collection. Respondent-specific codes were used to link the data from one time-point to the
      next one. These researchers received intensive training on the assessment measures and had
      supervision sessions with a senior researcher during data collection.

      PSYCHOPATHY.COMP's therapists were three psychologists, who had at least six years of
      clinical experience as well as intensive training and experience in delivering the
      PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program to young offenders. Moreover, therapists received weekly supervision
      by a senior CFT expert during the time PSYCHOPATHY.COMP was run in juvenile detention
      facilities. Therapist and youth rated every session and 5% of the sessions were observed by
      independent raters in order to assess treatment integrity. Finally, the program's structured
      and manualized design also accounted for integrity, at least partially.
    

Intervention name(s): PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program.; Treatment As Usual - TAU
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Other
Intervention description(s): The PSYCHOPATHY.COMP program is a structured individualized program for detained youth based on Compassion Focused Therapy, aimed to develop a compassionate motivation in these youth.
Treatment As Usual Treatment As Usual (TAU) in Portuguese juvenile detention facilities is primarily aimed to increase educational and professional qualifications, as well as to promote behavioral regulation.; Treatment As Usual (TAU) in Portuguese juvenile detention facilities is primarily aimed to increase educational and professional qualifications, as well as to promote behavioral regulation.
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Conduct Disorder; Compassion Focused Therapy; Detained Youth; Psychopathic Traits; PSYCHOPATHY.COMP