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Evaluation of the Recovery Is Possible for Everyone transdiagnostic treatment and support program for adults with eating disorders

This research program examined the effectiveness of the Recovery is Possible for Everyone(RIPE) a community based transdiagnostic group treatment program for adults with eating disorders.

Study 1 used retrospectively collected clinical data to evaluate the effectiveness of two versions of the RIPE program, the original CBT-based program and a more recent ACT-based program. Pre and post EAT26 scores improved for both groups (n=97, p<.05); there were no difference between the CBT and ACT versions of the program (p>.05). High levels of client satisfaction and clinically significant reductions in binging and purging were reported (n=100).

Study 2 used prospectively evaluated the effectiveness of the RIPE program (ACT-based). Participants (n=15; 100% female; M=25.7y; BMI=17.1- 28.7kg/m2) reported elevated levels of eating disorder and general psychopathology (p< .05). Weight preoccupation and drive for thinness, dietary restraint, internally responsive eating, body image satisfaction, self-esteem and quality of life improved significantly (p < .05). Interpretations are limited by the small sample size.

This is one of the first studies evaluating ACT based eating disorder treatment and one of the few studies evaluating the 'real world' effectiveness of eating disorder intervention. Results provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of ACT in the treatment for eating disorders. This study highlights the viability of proving evidence based intervention and conducting practice based research in real world settings.

This abstract was presented in the Adult Treatment and Services stream of the 2013 ANZAED Conference.

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Correspondence to Leah Brennan.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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Harry, S., Sutherland, F., McCarthy, B. et al. Evaluation of the Recovery Is Possible for Everyone transdiagnostic treatment and support program for adults with eating disorders. J Eat Disord 1 (Suppl 1), O2 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-2974-1-S1-O2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-2974-1-S1-O2

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