EFFECTIVENESS OF MINDFULNESS BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY ON REDUCTION OF PERCEIVED STRESS AND EATING DISORDER IN STUDENTS WITH EATING DISORDER SYMPTOMS

The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy on reduction in perceived stress and eating disorder in students with eating disorder symptoms.
Material & Research design was a pretest- posttest experimental design with control group. Statistical population consisted of all female students with eating disorder symptoms in Javanroud high schools in academic year 2015-2016. Participants were screened to ensure that all had eating disorder symptoms and for this purpose 500 participants in the age group of 15 to 18 completed Garner's eating attitudes test(1979) among which 30 participants who scored 20 or higher in the test were selected with eating disorder symptoms. Then 30 selected participants were classified into two experimental and control groups consisted of 15members; these participants completed Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale (1983).The experimental group was trained for 8 ninety minutes sessions lasted two months (1 session per week) by mindfulness based cognitive group therapy. Descriptive and inferential tests including covariance analysis with SPSS were used to analyze data.
Variance analysis results showed that eating disorder symptoms and stress in experimental group compared to the control group were reduced in post-test. (P=0/001, F=30.37).
Findings supports the effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy on reduction in perceived stress and eating disorder.