Family-based therapy works better than individual supportive therapy in treating teenagers with bulimia, a study published yesterday suggests.
In the study, in the September issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers randomly assigned 80 adolescents to receive 20 sessions over six months of family therapy or supportive treatment. There were no differences between the two groups in the number of sessions attended. But five in the family group and four from the supportive group dropped out of treatment.
Supportive therapy explores underlying problems that might be responsible for the binge eating disorder, examines emotional issues and encourages the expression of feelings and concerns. Family-based treatment does not seek underlying causes, but rather encourages parents to intervene to disrupt the behavior, persuade the adolescent to accept the interventions and, eventually, encourage the teenager to take control over eating.
By the last month of the study, in assessments by an expert who was not involved in treatment, 39 percent of the family group and 18 percent of the supportive group showed no symptoms of the illness. Partial remission rates showed a similar gap: 41 percent in the family group compared with 21 percent among the supportive therapy patients.
“Traditional treatments have often excluded parents, who have been seen as troublemakers,” said Daniel le Grange, the lead author and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. “Family-based treatment points to the fact that they are often a help.”
