[A multicenter study of expenditure and success in psychodynamic therapy of eating disorders. Study design and initial results].

UNLABELLED: Evaluation of psychodynamically oriented treatment of anorectic and bulimic patients, taking into account both quality and cost of therapist ("How much therapy is applied to which patients for a successful treatment?"). Criteria for indication of the kind of therapy and of amount of therapy ("dosage") are provided.

METHOD: Prospective naturalistic longitudinal study (comparable to phase IV of effectiveness studies on pharmaceuticals) including 2.5 year follow-up. Consecutive sample (Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, DSM-III-R). Multidimensional outcome measures including self-rating and expert-ratings. Operationalisation of outcome is layered. Differentiated measurement of amount of therapy and treatment elements. Survival analysis, logistic regression.

RESULTS

1171 completely documented treatment episodes of 43 institutions (30.3% Anorexia nervosa, 55.3% bulimia nervosa, 14.4% double diagnoses). Patients are chronically ill (M = 7.6 years; SD = 6.3 years) and at the beginning of (mostly inpatient) treatment of the index episode 25.5 years of age (SD = 6.0 years). Therapies last appr. 11 weeks (median) and encompass a broad range of therapy measures.

DISCUSSION: Study conduction as well as data collection and analysis of this worldwide largest study on treatment of eating disorders is discussed by presenting preliminary results.