Psychotherapy for patients with borderline personality disorder may substantially reduce symptom severity and suicidality, a review confirms.

Specifically, add-on interventions such as emotion regulation group therapy and manual-assisted cognitive therapy should be considered in patients already receiving standalone treatment, according to European researchers.

Although the overall quality of evidence for psychotherapy was low, the Danish-led team say such interventions are crucial given the lack of “convincing” evidence to support drug treatments in this clinical setting.

Building upon a 2020 Cochrane review, the authors analysed data from 31 randomised controlled trials with 1870 participants to gauge the efficacy of standalone and adjunctive psychotherapeutic interventions for borderline personality disorder (BPD).