Development and Validating of a Process-Based Therapeutic Package for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Disorder

Introduction: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a common mental health threat among youth and adolescents with various etiology factors. Extensive treatments have been proposed for this disorder, but there is a need for a therapeutic package with good efficiency and effectiveness. This study aimed to develop and validate a process-based therapeutic package for patients with NSSI disorder. Method: This was an applied study in terms of objective and qualitative in terms of data collection. The statistical population of the study consisted of psychology experts in Tehran, Iran in 2022. Twenty-three effective university professors who worked in this domain were selected via purposive selection sampling. The design and validation of the program were performed in four stages and 14 steps: reviewing the theoretical background and existing packages, developing the content of the package, validating it, and explaining the validation. Results: Grounded theory as a qualitative method was used to conceptualize the content. Investigator triangulation facilitated the data validation. Percent agreement of inner raters and content validity index (CVI) were used for assessment reliability and validity. The reliability of the program based on the percent agreement of inner rater was 0.98; CVR and CVI of all the sessions were 0.93 and 0.99, respectively. Conclusion: This study proposed process-based therapy package for non-suicidal self-injury disorder that is a reliable and valid comprehensive psychological therapy. This package is suggested to be used by expert in this domain to enhance the effectiveness of it.