Findings from a new study dispute treating teens with bulimia nervosa (bulimia) individually as opposed to a family-based therapy.
Traditionally, parents have been excluded from the treatment and counseling of teens with bulimia, the researchers said.
Researcher Daniel Le Grange said parents really need to be dynamically linked inside of the the curing of little ones and teenagers by having ingesting diseases, worrying that this kind of reasearch reveals ultimately that is actually parent involvement goes a long way to an abundant due to… The paper appears online in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by episodes of uncontrolled desire to eat followed by behaviors like self-induced vomiting, diuretic and laxative abuse or intense exercising to prevent gaining weight. People with bulimia try to hide their behavior. “That is, participants with lower [Family Environment Scale] conflict scores responded better to [Family-Based Treatment for Adolescent Bulimia Nervosa] compared to CBT-A, but there was no differentiation between these two treatments in families with higher levels of [Family Environment Scale] conflict scores”.
CBT focuses on individual patients, helping them to understand, recognize and change the irrational thoughts that are causing their behavior.
They randomized 130 adolescents age 12 to 18 with bulimia nervosa to either receive cognitive behavioral therapy or family based therapy. The teens underwent 18 outpatient sessions over the course of six months. However, abstinence rates did not significantly differ at 12-month follow-up (49% vs. 32%). At the end of initial treatment, 39 percent of family based therapy patients were abstaining from binging and purging versus 20 percent of cognitive based therapy patients, and at the six-month follow-up 44 percent of family based patients were not bingeing and purging versus 25 percent of patients who received cognitive based therapy. “Family based therapy is the treatment of choice for adolescents with bulimia nervosa, because it works quicker and faster and maintains its impact over time”.
Disclosure: Le Grange reports receiving royalties from Guilford Press and Routledge, and payments from the Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders, LLC, and funding from the Baker Foundation (Australia), Centers for Recovery (Insight Behavioral Health), National Eating Disorders Association, and Children’s Hospital and Clinics of Minnesota.
“Every time a patient throws up, there is a risk to rupturing the esophagus, causing electrolyte imbalance and cardiac arrhythmia that can cause death”.