Effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on depression, anxiety, stress, and weight self-efficacy in patients with eating disorder

 Eating disorders are characterized by persistent eating disorders or eating behaviors that leading to significant damage on physical and psychosocial function. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of compassion-focused therapy on improving symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress and weight self-efficacy in women with eating disorders (restrictive type).

In a quasi-experimental design pretest-posttest control group design, a total of 30 girls of University of Kurdistan at the year between 2014-2015 who had higher range at determined cut-off point in Revised Rigid Restraint Scale, after initial clinical assessment and qualifications of the study, purposive sampling method selected and randomly assigned to two experimental (Compassion-Focused Therapy, n = 15) and control groups (n = 15). Data collection tools were Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS), and Weight Efficacy Lifestyle Scale (WELS) that subjects before and after the intervention were assessed by this tool. In order to analyze the data, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used.

Outcome of the experimental group received 8 sessions focused therapy showed that treatment focused on compassion have effect on improving depression (F = 93.15, p<0.001), anxiety (F = 43.81, p<0.001), stress (F = 63.15, p<0.001), and weight self-efficacy (F = 72.94, p<0.001), in patients with eating disorder (restrictive type).

Compassion Focused therapy have efficacy on the psychological symptoms of eating disorder, and these results have practical implications for clinicians and health care providers involved in private and public health centers.