Eating disorder prevention: a comparison of intervention paradigms

Abstract

The eating disorder prevention literature is replete with discrepant outcome findings regarding the efficacy of various prevention approaches. In addition, no single study has provided a direct empirical comparison evaluating the efficacy of two prevention approaches and a no-treatment control. The present experiment was to provide a direct empirical comparison of the efficacy of a dissonance-based approach, a psychoeducational/sociocultural approach, and a no-treatment control condition in the prevention of eating disorder attitudes and behaviors. Two 3 (group: dissonance, psychoeducational/sociocultural, and control) x 2 (symptomatic status: symptomatic, asymptomatic) preliminary MANOVAS were conducted on the 6 postintervention and 5 follow-up measures. In addition, two 2 (group: dissonance, psychoeducational/ sociocultural) x 2 (symptomatic status: symptomatic, asymptomatic) MANOVAS were conducted on postintervention and follow-up data to explore differences between the dissonance-based and psychoeducational/sociocultural conditions only. It was predicted that the dissonance-based intervention would be more effective than both the psychoeducational/sociocultural and no-treatment control conditions in reducing eating disorder attitudes and behaviors. Findings indicated that the psychoeducational/sociocultural intervention was superior at postintervention at reducing dietary restraint for the symptomatic portion of the sample. It was also found that the dissonance based intervention was most effective for the symptomatic portion of the sample in reducing eating disorder behavior at postintervention. However, these results were not maintained at 4-week follow-up. Implications for eating disorder prevention paradigms are discussed.