Introduction: Non‑suicidal self‑injury is one of the common high‑risk behaviors during adolescence and is often associated with psychological problems such as depression and anxiety, leading to significant negative consequences for family relationships. The occurrence of this behavior indicates a serious need for professional support and intervention for adolescents. Accordingly, the present study aimed to develop a self‑compassion‑based intervention package for coping with self‑injurious behaviors and to compare its effectiveness with Dialectical Behavior Therapy on parental bonding in adolescents with self‑injurious behaviors.
Methods: The present study employed an exploratory sequential mixed‑methods design. In the qualitative phase, scientific books and articles were reviewed using inductive thematic analysis, and based on the extracted themes, a 10‑session intervention package was developed and its content validity was confirmed. In the quantitative phase, the study population consisted of adolescents aged 12–18 years who had referred to counseling centers of the Department of Education in Isfahan during the second half of 2024 and had experienced at least one episode of self‑injurious behavior. From this population, 45 participants were selected through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. The research instruments included a demographic information questionnaire, the Deliberate Self‑Harm Questionnaire, and the Parental Bonding Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS‑24 software through repeated measures analysis of variance.
Results: The findings indicated that the self‑compassion‑based intervention package for coping with self‑injurious behaviors demonstrated acceptable content validity, with CVR values ranging from 0.70 to 1.00 and CVI values ranging from 0.795 to 0.875. Furthermore, the quantitative results showed that both therapeutic approaches were effective in improving parental bonding in the dimensions of care and overprotection; however, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two treatment methods in this regard (P >0.05).
Conclusion: Given the confirmed validity of the developed self‑compassion‑based intervention package for coping with self‑injurious behaviors and its effectiveness comparable to Dialectical Behavior Therapy in improving parental bonding in the dimensions of care and overprotection among adolescents with self‑injurious behaviors, it is recommended that this intervention package be utilized as a therapeutic approach in educational and clinical settings.