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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2018stepped care\u2019. Self-help is offered as a first step, followed by more intensive specialized treatment for those who do not respond to self-help.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n