Cognitive therapy versus dietary counselling in the outpatient treatment of anorexia nervosa: effects of the treatment phase

✍ Scribed by Marc A. Serfaty; Douglas Turkington; Michael Heap; Lynne Ledsham; Elizabeth Jolley

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 164 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1072-4133
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0968(199911)7:5<334::aid-erv311>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

Objective: Cognitive therapy (CT) has been used in anorexia nervosa, but little is known about its effectiveness. A randomized controlled trial was undertaken comparing dietary advice (DA) with cognitive therapy in the outpatient treatment of AN.

Method: Thirty-®ve patients were randomly allocated to either cognitive therapy (n 25) or dietary advice (n 10). There were no signi®cant differences in the groups pre-treatment. Twenty sessions of cognitive therapy or dietary advice were offered.

Results: At 6 months 23 cognitive therapy patients remained engaged whereas all the dietary advice controls dropped out. Cognitive therapy patients showed signi®cant changes in Body Mass Index ( p 0.001), Eating Disorder Inventory Scores ( p 0.035), Beck Depression Inventory Scores ( p 5 0.0001) and Locus of Control of Behaviour Scores ( p 0.017).

Conclusions: Signi®cant improvements were observed in patients allocated to cognitive therapy, but not in those allocated to dietary advice on an intention to treat analysis. Cognitive therapy has advantages of promoting engagement and facilitating recovery. Copyright *