Metacognitive interpersonal therapy-eating disorders versus cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders for non-underweight adults with eating disorders: study protocol for a pilot pre-registered randomized controlled trial

Accepted: August 9, 2023
HTML: 48
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
Eating disorders (ED) are serious disorders characterized by an alteration of eating habits and excessive concern about weight and body shapes (Fairburn, 2002), accompanied by significant impairment inequality of life, high mortality rates and serious organic consequences (Jenkins et al., 2011; Treasure et al., 2015; 2020). Although evidence-based psychological therapies for nonunderweight ED presentations such as cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders (CBT-ED) are widely available, there is substantial scope for improvements, particularly in terms of efficacy and adherence. One option is to develop interventions to address elements of pathology not fully addressed by existing empirical supported treatments, such as incorporating techniques aimed at addressing interpersonal problems and personality disorder features into existing treatment delivery. We adapted Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy, a psychological intervention supported by evidence for treating personality disorders and integrated it with existing CBT techniques for eating disorders (MIT-ED). MIT-ED targets aspects of ED that are not included in the transdiagnostic CBT-E model such as poor metacognition, or maladaptive interpersonal schemas. This is a pre-registered (Protocol number: 0000781) pilot randomized clinical trial aimed at assessing acceptability and feasibility of MIT-ED and establishing preliminary evidence of effectiveness for future larger studies. Twenty patients (10 in each arm) will be randomized to 20 sessions of individual psychotherapy, either MIT-ED or CBTE. Repeated follow-ups will be collected up to 24 months. Participants are recruited at a private outpatient clinic for ED treatment. Acceptability will be assessed via session attendance, completion rates and preliminary outcomes. The primary outcome is ED pathology assessed with the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire-6. Other ED outcomes assessed will be eating disorder attitudes, clinical impairment and binge eating pathology. Secondary treatment outcomes are anxiety, depression, and global symptomatology. We will also assess emotional awareness, emotion regulation and therapeutic alliance. Based on previous studies of MIT for personality disorders we hypothesize that MIT-ED will be acceptable to patients, evidenced by high treatment adherence and retention. We hypothesize that MIT-ED will be associated with reductions in eating disorder pathology, at least equivalent to CBT-E. Results will be used to inform the study design, sampling, likely effect sizes and choice of outcome measures for future larger trials of MIT-ED in ED samples.
How to Cite

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Similar Articles
- Vittorio Lingiardi, Nancy McWilliams, Laura Muzi, The contribution of Sidney Blatt's two-polarities model to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 20 No. 1 (2017)
- Andrzej Werbart, Siri Aldèn, Anders Diedrichs, Changes in the anaclitic-introjective personality configurations following psychoanalytic psychotherapy with young adults , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 20 No. 1 (2017)
- Claudia Capella, Loreto Rodríguez, Estrella Azócar, Ximena Lama, Lucía Núñez, Daniela Águila, Camila Gomez, Macarena Espeleta, Vania Vasquez, Psychotherapeutic change in children and adolescents who have been sexually abused: a model from participants’ perspectives , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)
- Maria Pia Casini, Marta Moselli, Alice Wisniewski, Riccardo Williams, The role of suicidal motivations in adolescence: implications for the psychotherapeutic treatment of suicidal risk , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 27 No. 3 (2024)
- Jordan Bate, Angelica Tsakas, Facilitative interpersonal skills are relevant in child therapy too, so why don’t we measure them? , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)
- Antonino Carcione, Marta Santonastaso, Francesca Sferruzza, Ilaria Riccardi, Esoteric power, useless, useful: considerations about dreams in cognitive-behavioural therapy , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 24 No. 2 (2021): SPECIAL ISSUE "Working on dreams, from psychotherapy to neuroscience"
- Paola Manfredi, Claudia Taglietti, A psychodynamic contribution to the understanding of anger - The importance of diagnosis before treatment , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 2 (2022)
- Christine Koddebusch, Christiane Hermann, A proposed conceptualization of therapeutic competence: the three level model , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 21 No. 1 (2018)
- Racheli Miller, Mark J. Hilsenroth, Paul L. Hewitt, Perfectionism and therapeutic alliance: a review of the clinical research , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 20 No. 1 (2017)
- Fabiola Bizzi, Francesca Locati, Laura Parolin, Shmueli Goetz Yael, Emanuela Brusadelli, Advancement in the child attachment interview and the child and adolescent reflective functioning scale using a PDM-2 framework: case reports , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)
<< < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.