One-day communities for personality disorder

The U.K. Government and mental-health services have been making attempts to improve services for people with personality disorders. Sometimes these involve residential therapeutic communities but day therapeutic communities which people take part in once a week are more adaptable, local and cheaper. Researchers from the University of Liverpool studied four one-day therapeutic communities in Manchester and Liverpool between November 2005 and July 2008 looking at patients' mental health, social functioning, self-harm and use of services. The patients reported their own levels of health and were assessed by experts. The researchers found that the centres improved the patients' mental health and social functioning but made only slight improvements in their levels of self-harm and their use of services.

Barr, Wally ... [et al] - Quantitative findings from a mixed methods evaluation of once-weekly therapeutic community day services for people with personality disorder Journal of Mental Health, October 2010; 19(5): 412–421