People With Body Dysmorphic Disorder can Benefit from Online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

People with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a type of psychiatric illness that causes a person to have a distorted view of their appearance resulting in depression may benefit with internet-based therapy, revealed a new study.Researchers from the Karolinska Institute and Linkoping University in Sweden and King's College London in the UK evaluated the effectiveness of a therapist guided Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program for body dysmorphic disorder (BDD-NET) compared with online supportive therapy.

They examined 94 adult patients with body dysmorphic disorder who randomly received either BDD-NET or supportive therapy for 12 weeks. Participants contacted a therapist via email during treatment and both groups were followed for 3 months after the end of treatment.

Researchers found that 56% of participants responded to the treatment and had a 30% reduction in their symptoms. Only 13% of responders in supportive therapy had symptom reductions. They also found that 39% of those receiving BDD-NET no longer met diagnostic criteria for body dysmorphic disorder.

After a period of six months, participants in the supportive therapy group who crossed over to BDD-NET also had an improvement in their symptom scores. The study was published in BMJ.

Researchers concluded that BDD-NET resulted in significant improvements in symptom severity, depression, and quality of life compared with supportive therapy.

"BDD-NET has the potential to increase access to evidence-based psychiatric care for this mental disorder," said researchers.

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Reference: Jesper Enander, Erik Andersson et al. “Therapist guided internet based cognitive behavioral therapy for body dysmorphic disorder: single blind randomized controlled trial,” BMJ 2016;352:i241

Source-Medindia