The effect of metacognitive therapy on symptoms related to metacognitive beliefs in patients with body dysmorphic disorder

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy (MCT) on reduction of the symptoms related to the meta cognitive features in patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) patients. In this randomized clinical trial 20 participants were selected from referrals to dermatology and cosmetic surgery clinics in the city of Isfahan in 2009 on the basis of DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for BDD and were randomly assigned to either experimental or control group. The Yale-Brown obsessive compulsive scale modified for body dysmorphic disorder (BDD-YBOCS) and metacognitive questionnaire (MCQ) were used as the pre-test measures. The experimental group received 8 weekly metacognitive intervention sessions. The control group was in the waiting list until end of the follow up. The same measures were used for post-test and follow up. It was utilized multivariate analysis of covariance method using SPSS.18 for analysis of data. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed that MCT had a significant effect in reducing symptoms related to metacognitive briefs (positive beliefs about worry, uncontrollability and danger,cognitive confidence, etc) of patients with BDD in post-test and follow up (P<0.01). The findings of this study show that MCT, even in a six-month follow up, is effective in reducing the symptoms of the metacognitive beliefs in patients with BDD.