Enhancing psychotherapy for bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder

A randomised trial of cognitive behaviour therapy, schema focussed therapy and appetite enhanced cognitive therapy in the treatment for bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder to reduce the frequency of binge eating episodes after six months of weekly and six months of monthly therapy

Status

Completed

Phases

Phase 1

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12605000721606

Acronym

BEP

Enrollment

112

Registered

2005-11-09

Start date

2005-05-17

Completion date

2010-10-05

Last updated

2020-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

Bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED) are eating disorders that share a pattern of binge eating or overeating within discrete short time periods. CBT is the most effective treatment for BN and BED, and uses both cognitive and behavioural strategies. However, in spite of CBT being the most effective treatment for BN and BED, fewer than half of individuals fully recover. The proposed study aims to evaluate whether the effectiveness of standard CBT may be enhanced in two different ways. Schema therapy (ST) enhances the cognitive component of CBT by focusing on changing deeper level beliefs or schemas. Appetite enhanced CBT (CBT-A) enhances the behavioural component of CBT by focusing on hunger and satiety. The study will randomise women with BN or BED to standard CBT, ST or CBT-A

Interventions

CBT-B (Beck); CBT-S (Schema focused); CBT-A (Appetite enhanced). Duration: 12 months.

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Treatment

Masking

Blinded (masking used) (Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

16 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

i) current primary diagnosis of BN or BED; ii) Body mass index (BMI) > 17.5.

Exclusion criteria

Current severe major depression (HDRS>20); ii) current severe psychoactive substance dependence; iii) current or past bipolar I disorder or schizophrenia; iv) developmental learning disorder or cognitive impairment; v) major medical or neurological illness; vi) current severe medical complications of an eating disorder; vii) currently taking psychoactive medication and unwilling to undergo a supervised drug wash-out period (the longer of two weeks or five drug half-lives); viii) failure to respond to a previous adequate trial of one of the psychotherapies in this study.

Outcome results