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Acquired Brain InjuryGREMO-LCANCT05393492

Regulating Emotions and Behaviors After Brain Injury

A study testing Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapy in people with Acquired Brain Injury and Stroke/ Cerebrovascular Accident (Ischemic or Hemorrhagic), run by University Hospital, Strasbourg, France at 1 site in France.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

After acquired brain injury (ABI), persons can experience emotional and behavioral difficulties, that can be painful both for the person and his/her family. This clinical study aims at measuring the effectiveness of a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy called "dialectical behavior therapy" (DBT). Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and olderHealthy volunteers can take part
What is being tested?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapy
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
77 participants
Where
1 siteFrance
Study dates
19 May 2022to Dec 2028
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Persons with acquired brain injury regardless of the type or location of the injury
  • Age between 18 and 68
  • Over 18 months since the acquired brain injury (or 6 month if mild traumatic brain injury)
  • Challenging behaviors or emotional dysregulation or high level of anxiety / depression or family's complaints about emotional dysregulation
  • Secondary or exacerbated by an acquired brain injury
  • Causing important suffering for themselves or their families
Show all 18Show fewer
  • Being affiliated to a social security
  • Fluent in French
  • Being able to understand goals and risks and to give a dated and signed consent
  • Being 18 years old or more
  • Without brain injury
  • Being 18 years old or more
  • GREMO patient's family member
  • Living with a GREMO patient
  • Agreeing to rate an emotion-behavior-skills diary cards
  • Person with ABI attending the same medico-social service as GREMO patients
  • Ineligible for GREMO patients group (participation refusal, major insight difficulty…)
  • Agreeing to talk about their free will or spirituality

Who cannot join

  • Clinically evident severe lack of insight, lack of abstract reasoning, or severe anosognosia
  • Patients without any complaints
  • Severe cognitive impairments, aphasia or intellectual impairments that doesn't allow to understand DBT skills, questionnaires or group intreactions
  • Non fluent in French
  • Associated brain degenerative disease
  • Cancerous brain injury with uncertain progression
Show all 27Show fewer
  • Non-stabilized psychotic disorder
  • Following a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy during the research study (for example : acceptance and commitment therapy)
  • Controls without brain injury
  • Non fluent in French
  • History of brain injury or brain disease
  • History of psychiatric disorder
  • Personality disorder
  • GREMO patient's family member living together
  • Psychologist, neuropsychologist or people with an emotional regulation knowledge linked to their profession
  • Being under guardianship or curatorship
  • Being pregnant or breastfeeding
  • GREMO patients' family members
  • GREMO patient's refusal for their family member to participate
  • Non fluent in French
  • Brain injury or brain disease
  • Major lack of insight
  • Being under trusteeship or curatorship
  • Qualitative research ABI patients and families
  • Aphasia or dysarthria not allowing understandable recording
  • Impossibility to understand oral questions
  • Non fluent in French

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

France1 site, 1 recruiting
  • Service EMOI-TC - Pôle de MPR Institut Universitaire de Réadaptation Clemenceau (IURC)

    Illkirch-Graffenstaden, 67402

    Agata KRASNY-PACINI, +33 3 69 06 30 42, agata.krasny-pacini@ugecam.assurance-maladie.fr

    Agata KRASNY-PACINI

    Recruiting

Other trials in France

About this study

Official title: Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Challenging Behaviors and Emotional Distress After Acquired Brain Injury : a Pilot Study

After acquired brain injury (ABI), persons can experience emotional and behavioral difficulties, that can be painful both for the person and his/her family. This clinical study aims at measuring the effectiveness of a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy called "dialectical behavior therapy" (DBT). DBT aims at teaching persons emotion regulation skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills, mindfulness and distress tolerance skills through group and individual sessions.

The study's hypothesis is that DBT, in an adapted format for persons with ABI can lead to

Read more
  • a better quality of life, emotional and behavioral regulation, and self-esteem
  • decrease in problematic behaviors
  • progress in life goals
  • increase post traumatic growth and spirituality
  • better family functioning and lesser burden for care givers
  • experiencing more emotions and more free will 45 persons with an ABI sustained more than 18 month back, will follow a 3 phases, follow-up with care as usual for 5 months, followed by 5 months of DBT, followed by 5 months of care as usual + DBT monthly sessions.

Self- and family-questionnaire will explore quality of life, emotional regulation, self-esteem, stress, anxiety, cognitive difficulties, family functioning and coping, post traumatic growth and spirituality and will be compared across the 3 phases. Results will be analyzed at a group level but also at an individual level (each patient separately) to test for decrease in unwanted behaviors and at a dyadic level (the person and his/her spouse) to test for the mutual effect of regulating emotions. Persons' memories will by analyzed at 3 time points by a linguistic analysis, and experience of free will after ABI will be analyzed by transcribed narratives of participants.

Read the detailed description

The study will explore the impact of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills training on patients with ABI, their families and on for their family system interactions.

->Triple methodology :

  1. 3 stages, monocentric, comparative, open-label for part of the outcome measures and single-blinded (only for linguistic markers) with active control treatment
  2. Prospective (at the individual level) and correlational (at the dyad level: client - family member) single-case experimental study exploring emotional-behavioral interactions as a function of the use of DBT skills by the client, over time. Further, it will explore the experience of free will (the property of the human will to determine itself freely), in relation to emotions and meaning of life/spirituality after ABI and the modifications of this experience after DBT.
  3. qualitative study of semi-structured individual by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA

The objectives of this research are to show that a group training of DBT skills allows persons with ABI, (1) to improve quality of life - main objective; (2) to improve self-esteem and emotional regulation (3) to decrease depressive symptoms and problematic behaviors, (4) to self-determine and achieve one's goals (Goal Attainment Scaling) for a life worth living; (5) to improve coping and family functioning; (7) to decrease caregiver burden; (8) to interpret one's life, with more expression of emotions, non-judgment, acceptance of the difficulty of life and motivation to change (measured by linguistic analysis of emotionally charged memories)

Being tested
Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapy
Keywords
brain injury, dialectical behavior therapy, emotions, emotional dysregulation, behavioral disorders, spirituality, challenging behaviors, linguistic markers, emotional distress, family burden, free will, interpretative phenomenological analysis, single-case experimental design
Medical subject headings
Brain Injuries, Stroke, Ischemia, Brain Neoplasms, Encephalitis, Hypoxia, Brain, Meningitis, Mental Disorders

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapyBehavioural

    Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a third wave cognitive-behavioral therapy. It focuses on emotional dysregulation and interactions between the patient and his family in genesis and maintenance of challenging behaviors. It is used here in an adapted form for cognitive problems.

    Delivered in a group format of 19 weeks + individual sessions.

Study groups in NCT05393492
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
GREMO patientsExperimental1. 5 months of baseline : usual care of in a medico-social service (medical, social, neuropsychological and psychological), 2. 5 months of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) -DBT skills training group : during 19 weeks 3. 5 months of follow-up : usual care of + monthly reminders of DBT intervention skills
Receives: Behavioral: Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapy
Controls without brain injuryNo interventionPeople without brain injury used as controls for linguistic markers of emotional expression regulation and free will.
GREMO patients' familyNo interventionGREMO patients' relatives, without brain injury, living with the GREMO patient and ready to complete every day and adapted self-observational diary card similar to the one of the GREMO patient
Qualitative research ABI patients and familiesNo interventionPatients and relatives followed by the same medico-social service but not meeting GREMO patients eligibility criteria, participating only in the qualitative research on free will and spirituality

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Quality Of Life after Brain Injury

    Evaluation of quality of life after brain injury with QOLIBRI (Quality Of Life after Brain Injury)on 37 items belonging to 6 factors: cognition, self, daily life and autonomy, social relationships, emotions and physical problems. The Qolibri scores are reported a 0-100. 0 is the worst and 100 is the best.

    Self-rated by GREMO patients.

    Measured: 15 months

Secondary outcomes (10)
  1. Evaluation of the difficulties in emotions regulation

    Evaluation of emotional regulation difficulties with DERS ( Difficuties en Emotion Regulation Scale)-16 on 16 items filed in 5 factors : lack of emotional clarity, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior, impulse control difficulties, limited access to effective emotion regulation strategies, nonacceptance of emotional responses.

    Self-rated by GREMO patients and self-rated by family member about themselves. DERS-16 can range from 16 to 80, higher scores suggest greater problems with emotion regulation

    Measured: 15 months

  2. Evaluation of self-esteem

    Evaluation of self-esteem on 10 items with EES-10 (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) . You then get a score between 10 and 40.If you score below 25, your self-esteem is very low. Work in this area seems desirable. If you get a score above 39, your self-esteem is very high and you tend to be strongly assertive.

    Self-rated by GREMO patients

    Measured: 15 months

  3. Evaluation of executive functioning

    Evaluation of executive functioning with BRIEF-A (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version) on 75 items filed in inhibit, self-monitor, plan/organize, shift, initiate, task monitor, emotional control, working memory and organization of materials.

    Self-rated by GREMO patients and proxi-rated by a family member.high scores obtained on the BRIEF do not indicate a "disorder of executive function" but rather suggest a higher level of dysfunction in a specific domain of executive functions

    Measured: 15 months

  4. Evaluation of reflective functioning

    Evaluation of reflective functioning with RFQ (Reflective Function Questionnaire) on 8 items.

    7 if you strongly agree, and the 1 if you arestrongly disagree. Use the middle point (the 4) if you are neutral or indecisive requirements of the RFQ

    Measured: 15 months

  5. Evaluation of psychological distress

    Evaluation of psychological distress with DASS-21 (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale) on 21 items about depression, anxiety and stress.

    Each of the 21 questions is scored on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 ("Did not apply to me at all") to 3 ("Applied to me very much, or most of the time"). Scores for Depression,

    Anxiety and Stress are calculated by summing the scores for the relevant items:

    Depression: 3, 5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 21 Anxiety: 2, 4, 7, 9, 15, 19, 20 Stress: 1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 1

    Measured: 15 months

  6. Evaluation of positive outcomes reported by persons who have experienced traumatic event

    Evaluation of positive outcomes reported by persons who have experienced traumatic events, such as brain injury, which evaluates new possibilities, relating to others, personal strength, spiritual change, and appreciation of life with Post-traumatic Growth Inventory.

    Self-rated by GREMO patients. It consists of 21 questions to which responses are given on a scale of 0-5, with 0 representing no change and 5 showing a great degree of change.

    Measured: 15 months

  7. Evaluation of the perception of the family functioning

    Evaluation of the perception of the family functioning on 12 items with FAD (Family Assessment Device). Scores range from 1 to 4 with 1 reflecting healthy functioning and 4 reflecting unhealthy functioning.

    Measured: 15 months

  8. Evaluation of coping cope with dysfunctions related to their relatives' pathology.

    Evaluation of coping cope with dysfunctions related to their relatives' pathology.

    Rated by a family member with FCQ (Family Coping Questionnaire).It consists of 21 questions to which responses are given on a scale of 0-5, with 0 representing no change and 5 showing a great degree of change.

    Measured: 15 months

  9. Evaluation of family burden

    Evaluation of family burdenon 21 items with Zarit (Zarit Burden Interview) questionnaire

    Rated by a family member.The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) The ZBI consists of 22 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale that ranges from 0 (never) to 4 (nearly always) with the sum of scores ranging between 0-88. Higher scores indicate greater burden. A score of 17 or more was considered high burden

    Measured: 15 months

  10. Evaluation of the goal attainment related to better emotional regulation

    3 milestone, 5-level GAS, evaluating goal attainment related to better emotional regulation. Each GREMO patient will have at least on personalized GAS according to his/her goals with Goal Attainment Scaling.

    0 means not important, 1 means important, 2 means very important and 3 means extremely important

    Measured: 15 months

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted26 May 2022
  2. Study start19 May 2022
  3. Primary completion19 May 2022
  4. Study completionDec 2028 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Non-randomised
Intervention model
Parallel groups
Model description
DBT for patients
Masking
Single blind
Who is masked
Outcomes assessor
Enrolment
77 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT05393492
Sponsor's protocol ID
8264
Acronym
GREMO-LCA
Status last verified
Jun 2026
First submitted
18 Jan 2022
Last updated
9 Jun 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Undecided

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open dialectical behavior therapy in people with Acquired Brain Injury and Stroke/ Cerebrovascular Accident (Ischemic or Hemorrhagic), run by University Hospital, Strasbourg, France at 1 site in France.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 18 inclusion and 27 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 9 Jun 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in France. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Each site lists its own contact: choose the nearest one under Trial locations. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Quality Of Life after Brain Injury (time frame: 15 months). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 9 Jun 2026.

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