The role of emotional dysregulation in the treatment of eating disorders

Female outpatients at an eating disorders clinic (N=62, mean age=22.5), meeting the criteria for anorexia, bulimia, or eating disorder not-otherwise-specified, took part in a study investigating the effectiveness of enhancing "treatment-as-usual" (TAU) with an embedded two hours per week of a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) procedure. Effectiveness was measured by comparing pretest and posttest scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Both the TAU and the combined TAU-DBT protocols produced a significant reduction in scores on the two measures. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups. There was a reduction in treatment hours using the embedded DBT protocol to achieve the same symptom reduction as TAU. This finding may prove useful in cost reductions for eating disorders treatment programs.