Effectiveness of step-down versus outpatient dialectical behaviour therapy for patients with severe levels of borderline personality disorder: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

Table 1 Comparisons of key demographic and clinical characteristics in step-down DBT and outpatient DBT

	Step-down DBT^a		Outpatient DBT^b		Test Statistic	df	p
	M	SE	M	SE	Test Statistic	df	p
Age first mental health problems	11.13	.79	11.88	.67	t = −.72	49	.47
Age first contact mental health care	14.28	1.15	15.44	1.20	t = −.59	53	.56
Number of BPD criteria	7.10	.20	7.56	.30	t = −1.25	53	.22
Severity of BPD 3 m before intake	37.17	1.27	34.75	1.29	t = 1.12	53	.27
Age at time of intake	26.15	6.18^d	25.63	7.45^d	Z = −.71^e	n.a.	.48
Suicide attempts lifetime	4.72	6.79^d	25.84	52.90^d	Z = −.64^e	n.a.	.52
Ambivalent SI lifetime (N = 54)	12.50^c	28.76^d	33.88	77.59^d	Z = .41^e	n.a.	.68
NSSI lifetime (N = 44)	525.48^c	876.74^d	938.07^c	1644.26^d	Z = −.23^e	n.a.	.82

n.a. not applicable; Comparisons performed with t-tests for normally distributed variables and with Wilcoxon two sample tests for variables that were not normally distributed. ^a N = 39; ^b N = 16; ^c Patients that persisted that they could not recall lifetime occurrence of self-injurious behaviours, because it was “too high to estimate” were removed from calculations; ^d Standard deviation (SD) was reported instead of standard error (SE); ^e Wilcoxon two sample tests