HealthDay (9/18, Dallas) reports that research published online Sept. 18 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that teens with bulimia recover faster when their parents are involved. According to study lead Daniel Le Grange, the Benioff UCSF professor in children’s health at the University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, the findings run “counter to the training that physicians receive in psychiatry, which teaches that parents are to blame for bulimia, and therefore should be omitted from treatment.”
The small study of 130 teens found that after initial treatment, 39 percent of teens who were randomly assigned to receive family-based therapy (FBT) were no longer binging and purging, compared with 20 percent of patients who received cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). At the six-month follow up, “44 percent of FBT patients had stopped binging and purging, compared to 25 percent of CBT patients.”
Related Links:
— “Parents Should Be Involved in Teen’s Bulimia Treatment: Study,” Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 18, 2015.