Abstract |
Although cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been demonstrated to be the most effective approach for the treatment of bulimia nervosa (BN), there is lack of studies showing whether a combination with a serious video game (SVG) might be useful to enhance patients' emotional regulation capacities and general outcome. The aims of this study were (a) to analyze whether outpatient CBT + SVG, when compared with outpatient CBT - SVG, shows better short-term outcome; (b) to examine whether the CBT + SVG group is more effective in reducing emotional expression and levels of anxiety than CBT - SVG. Thirty-eight patients diagnosed as having BN according to DSM-5 criteria were consecutively assigned to two outpatient group therapy conditions (that lasted for 16 weekly sessions): 20 CBT + SVG versus 18 CBT - SVG. Patients were assessed before and after treatment using not only a food and binging/purging diary and clinical questionnaires in the field of eating disorders but also additional indexes for measuring anger expression and anxiety. Regarding the post-treatment psychometric measures, most of the mean differences ( Eating Disorder Inventory-2, Symptom Checklist-Revised, State-Trait Anxiety Index, and partially State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory) achieved moderate to high effect size (d > 0.5), in the sense that CBT + SVG obtained the best results compared with the CBT - SVG group. Regarding therapy outcome (dropout, partial remission, and total remission), CBT + SVG showed better results and a moderate effect size emerged for the comparison of the risk of dropout during the treatment, being higher for CBT - SVG compared with CBT + SVG (44.1 percent versus 20.0 percent, d = 0.54). Although the sample size in our study was low, and consequently results should be considered with caution, we have obtained promising findings suggesting that in the short-term CBT + SVG might be a good option not only for improving emotional dysregulation and approaching the current limitations of CBT - SVG in BN but also for enhancing the therapy adherence of patients.
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Authors | Fernando Fernandez-Aranda, Susana Jimenez-Murcia, Juan J Santamaría, Cristina Giner-Bartolomé, Gemma Mestre-Bach, Roser Granero, Isabel Sánchez, Zaida Agüera, Maher H Moussa, Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, Dimitri Konstantas, Tony Lam, Mikkel Lucas, Jeppe Nielsen, Peter Lems, Salomé Tarrega, José Manuel Menchón |
Journal | Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking
(Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw)
Vol. 18
Issue 12
Pg. 744-51
(Dec 2015)
ISSN: 2152-2723 [Electronic] United States |
PMID | 26583754
(Publication Type: Clinical Trial, Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
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Topics |
- Adult
- Anger
- Anxiety
(diagnosis)
- Bulimia Nervosa
(psychology, therapy)
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
(methods)
- Diet Records
- Emotions
- Female
- Humans
- Non-Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
- Patient Compliance
- Patient Dropouts
- Personality Inventory
- Psychometrics
- Surveys and Questionnaires
- Treatment Outcome
- Video Games
(psychology)
- Young Adult
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