Attention Training and Its Effects on Body Image Disturbance

University of Sydney

Status: Completed

Conditions: Eating Disorder Symptoms; Body Dissatisfaction

Treatments: Behavioral: attention training; Behavioral: placebo training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01110265

USydney11760

Details and patient eligibility

About

Research has consistently found attentional biases towards negative weight-related stimuli in individuals with eating disorders. It has been suggested that these biases may act as a vulnerability factor for the development and maintenance of body dissatisfaction and may therefore be an important target for intervention. Previous studies have demonstrated the capacity to modify the patterns of attention allocation to threatening stimuli in a variety of anxiety disorders, with a subsequent and sustained reduction in anxiety symptoms. Thus, the present study aimed at testing the efficacy of attention training in reducing attentional biases and eating disorder symptoms in individuals with elevated levels of body image disturbance and eating disorder symptomatology of clinical severity. Thirty-two participants were randomly allocated to receive eight sessions of a 10-minute computer task aimed at training their attention away from weight-related stimuli or a control placebo training condition. Results showed that participants in the attention training group had a significantly greater reduction in their attentional bias and body dissatisfaction from pre- to post-training relative to the placebo condition. At follow-up, both groups showed a significant decrease in body dissatisfaction from their pre-training levels. The only significant difference between groups in eating disorder symptoms at follow-up was in terms of the attention training group experiencing a greater reduction in weight and shape concerns.

Enrollment: 32 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 37 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• If they have a score on the Body Shape Questionnaire of 113 or more AND a score in the EDE-Q of 4 or more in any subscale.

Exclusion criteria

• attention bias score of <-10

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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32 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

placebo training

Placebo Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: placebo training

attention training

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: attention training