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Binge Eating Disorder (BED) involves overeating with a sense of loss of control at least once a week and affects 3.6% of Canadian women and men.
Most individuals with BED are often obese and have suffered from depression at some point in their life. The total health-care cost for those with BED is 36% higher than the national average. Hence BED is associated with a high personal, health and economic burden for Canadians.
Specialized treatments for BED are moderately effective, but not everyone with BED may require these expensive and difficult-to-access treatments. An alternative may be self-help interventions that have been known to achieve success rates as high as 30%. Another alternative is a new approach that combines the two, referred to as ‘stepped care’. Self-help is offered as a first step, followed by more intensive specialized treatment for those who do not respond to self-help.
Our study will be the first to test a stepped care treatment for BED in a randomized trial. We will also assess predictors of treatment response in order to guide future decisions about who might require the more intensive second step.
150 women and men with BED will be offered self-help interventions for BED. After self-help, half will be randomly assigned one of the following:
- A 16-week wait-list control condition
- 16 weeks of Group Psychodynamic Interpersonal Psychotherapy (GPIP); an intensive treatment developed at The Ottawa Hospital.
The results of this trial will help to increase the accessibility, availability and cost-effectiveness of treatments for binge eating disorder. Tailoring treatment for BED will reduce the personal, health and economic burden associated with this disorder, obesity and depression for Canadians.
For more information, email bedstudy@toh.on.ca or call 613-798-5555, ext. 73011.
Dr. Giorgio A. Tasca, C.Psych.
Research Chair in Psychotherapy Research, University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital
Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Clinical Professor in Psychology, University of Ottawa
Director of Research, Eating Disorders Program, The Ottawa Hospital
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