PSYCHOPATHY.COMP Program Among Male Prison Inmates With Psychopathy

Starting soon · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

In brief

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether PSYCHOPATHY.COMP, an individual compassion-focused, therapy-based intervention of 20 weekly sessions, can reduce psychopathy in prison inmates. Psychopathy is linked with the most severe and persistent forms of antisocial behavior. This trial will also learn whether the program improves emotional and behavioral regulation. The main questions are: * Does PSYCHOPATHY.COMP reduce psychopathy? * Does PSYCHOPATHY.COMP improve emotional and behavioral regulation? Researchers will compare PSYCHOPATHY.COMP with the usual individual case management support provided in prisons. Portuguese-speaking adult male prison inmates will be invited to participate. Those who consent to participate will be screened for inclusion (T0). A total of 200 eligible participants will take part. All participants will be invited to complete a baseline assessment (T1, pre-treatment assessment), after which they will be randomly assigned to receive PSYCHOPATHY.COMP or the usual care provided in the prison for a period of around six months. All participants will be invited to complete a post-treatment assessment (T2) and a six-month follow-up assessment post-treatment. Assessments will collect data on sociodemographic characteristics and legal/criminal information, psychological outcomes (psychopathy, emotional regulation, and behavioral regulation), psychological mediators (mechanisms of change: compassion-related variables), and moderators (personality pathology), and data on social desirability. This study aims to contribute to advancing scientific knowledge about whether and how to reduce psychopathy among prison inmates and have an impact on clinical practice and society by making available evidence-based interventions to this at-risk/high-risk population.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT07481253

Run by

University of Coimbra

People needed

200

Starts

2026-04-01

Expected to finish

2027-11-30

Last updated by the study team

2026-03-24

Who can join

Age: 19 and older, up to 30. Sex: male. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• male prison inmates,
• Portuguese-speaking,
• aged between 19 and 30 years
• having at least one prior case in the juvenile justice system in which a judicial measure was applied,
• with high levels of psychopathic traits (measured with the SRP-SF and LSRPS self-reported questionnaires)
• with an Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) diagnosis (measured with the SCID-II)

You may not qualify if…

• suspected psychotic/autism spectrum disorders and/or cognitive impairments,
• female,
• sentence length inferior to 24 months since the start of the study.

Where it is running

• Prisons of the Direção-Geral de Reinserção e Serviços Prisionais (DGRSP) — Lisbon, Portugal

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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