RESEARCH ARTICLE


Brief Strategic Therapy vs Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for the Inpatient and Telephone-Based Outpatient Treatment of Binge Eating Disorder: The STRATOB Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial



Gianluca Castelnuovo1, 2, *, Gian Mauro Manzoni1, 3, Valentina Villa1, Gian Luca Cesa1, Enrico Molinari1, 2
1 Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS, Psychology Research Laboratory, Ospedale San Giuseppe, Verbania, Italy
2 Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
3 Department of Psychology, University of Bergamo, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© Castelnuovo et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Psychology Research Laboratory, San Giuseppe Hospital, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Via Cadorna, 90, 28824 Piancavallo (VB), Italy; Tel: 0039 323 514338; Fax: 0039 323 514338; E-mail: gianluca.castelnuovo@auxologico.it


Abstract

This paper describes the results of the STRATOB (Systemic and STRATegic psychotherapy for OBesity) study, a two-arm randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) comparing Brief Strategic Therapy (BST, Nardone or Arezzo model) with the gold standard CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) for the inpatient and telephone-based outpatient treatment of obese people with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) seeking treatment for weight reduction. Primary outcome measure of the randomized trial was change in the Global Index of the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ 45.2). Secondary outcome measures were BED remission (weekly binge episodes < 2) and weight loss. Data were collected at baseline, at discharge from the hospital (c.a. 1 month after) and after 6 months from discharge.. No significant difference between groups (BST vs CBT) was found in the primary outcome at discharge. However, a greater improvement was seen in the BST vs the CBT group (P<.01) in the primary outcome at 6 months. About secondary outcomes, no significant difference between groups were found in weight change both at discharge and at 6 months. Notably, a significant association emerged between treatment groups and BED remission at 6 months in favor of BST (only 20% of patients in BST group reported a number of weekly binge episodes > 2 vs 63.3% in CBT group).

Keywords: Brief strategic therapy – BST, cognitive behavioural therapy – CBT, binge-eating disorder – BED, clinical psychology, obesità, telecare, psychotherapy.