Khrista Boylan

  • Associate Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences
  • Associate Member, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Dr Boylan is a clinician researcher whose aim is to identify developmental and clinical processes which contribute to persistent depression in adolescents. She is keenly concerned about the validity of the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in youth, identifying its childhood predictors and how to improve the way clinicians provide care to teens who are experiencing a psychiatric crisis. She also studies the epidemiology of oppositional behaviour and irritability in children and adolescents.

She leads or participates in several studies with clinical and community participants. These studies are aiming to predict which adolescents may respond best to antidepressant medications, as well as benefit from evidence based psychotherapies, specifically dialectical behaviour therapy.

Current Activities

  • D-PSYPHER: The psychophysiology of emotion regulation in teenagers.
  • Teenage girls emotion regulation study (TiGER): Measurement of emotional dysregulation and self harm difficulties in a clinical sample of depressed adolescent girls.
  • Identifying Affective Dysregulation in youth at risk for severe mental illness. An NIMH funded epidemiologic study to develop measures of emotional dysregulation within disruptive behaviour disorders.
  • Peer victimization, mental health and academic achievement: A multi-informant longitudinal study.
  • Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals: Early Childhood Biomonitoring and Neurodevelopment Study (MIREC-CD Plus). Health Canada.
  • 2014 Ontario Child Health Study

Publications

  • Boylan K, Chahal J, Courtney DB, Sharp C, Bennett K. An evaluation of clinical practice guidelines for self-harm in adolescents: The role of borderline personality pathology. Personal Disord. 2019 Sep 2;. doi: 10.1037/per0000349. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31478716.
  • Al-Salom P, Boylan K. Borderline Personality Disorder and Disordered Eating Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Rejection Sensitivity. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2019 Aug;28(2):72-81. Epub 2019 Aug 1. PubMed PMID: 31447905; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6691797.
  • Boylan K, MacQueen G, Kirkpatrick R, Lee J, Santaguida PL. A systematic review of interventions for treatment resistant major depressive disorder in adolescents. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2019 Jun 5;. doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01341-5. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31165921.
  • Georgiades K, Boylan K, Duncan L, Wang L, Colman I, Rhodes AE, Bennett K, Comeau J, Manion I, Boyle MH. Prevalence and Correlates of Youth Suicidal Ideation and Attempts: Evidence from the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study. Can J Psychiatry. 2019 Apr;64(4):265-274. doi: 10.1177/0706743719830031. PubMed PMID: 30978144; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6463356.
  • Stead VE, Boylan K, Schmidt LA. Longitudinal associations between non-suicidal self-injury and borderline personality disorder in adolescents: a literature review. Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul. 2019;6:3. doi: 10.1186/s40479-019-0100-9. eCollection 2019. Review. PubMed PMID: 30783532; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6375156.
  • Waldman ID, Rowe R, Boylan K, Burke JD. External validation of a bifactor model of oppositional defiant disorder. Mol Psychiatry. 2018 Dec 11;. doi: 10.1038/s41380-018-0294-z. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 30538308.
  • Boylan K. Innovations in Clinical Service Provision for Children and Youth. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Nov;27(4):211. Epub 2018 Nov 1. PubMed PMID: 30487934; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6254259.
  • Boylan K. Diagnosing BPD in Adolescents: More good than harm. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2018 Aug;27(3):155-156. Epub 2018 Jul 1. PubMed PMID: 30038651; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6054283.

For further publications click here.

Contact Khrista

Email:

Research Interests

  • Validity of clinical subtyping
  • Longitudinal course of psychopathology and comorbidity
  • Treatment of persistent depression in adolescents
  • Impact of clinical environment on patients in crisis

Education, Memberships & Certifications

  • MD, Dalhousie University
  • PhD, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University