Premium
Effectiveness of emotional skills training for patients with anorexia nervosa with autistic symptoms in group and individual format
Author(s) -
Adamson James,
Leppanen Jenni,
Murin Marianna,
Tchanturia Kate
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
european eating disorders review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.511
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1099-0968
pISSN - 1072-4133
DOI - 10.1002/erv.2594
Subject(s) - alexithymia , autism , anhedonia , psychology , anorexia nervosa , psychological intervention , clinical psychology , eating disorders , affect (linguistics) , social skills , developmental psychology , psychiatry , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , communication
Objective The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of CREST interventions in individual and group formats for adult anorexia nervosa. Furthermore, this study also aims to analyse whether patients with high levels of autistic symptoms respond differently. Methods Participants' self‐report measures were taken before and after individual and group interventions ( N = 66 and N = 62, respectively). Mixed effects analysis was used to analyse overall response to both formats and assess interaction with autism symptoms. Results Significant improvements were observed for patients' alexithymia in individual format, and motivation increased for participants in both interventions. Significant interactions were observed between alexithymia, social anhedonia, and autism symptoms in individual format and alexithymia in group format. No interactions between autism and time were observed for either format. Conclusions CREST in both formats offers participants improvements in social–emotional and motivational domains. Patients with high levels of autism symptoms also score high on both social anhedonia and alexithymia measures, but this does not affect their response to treatment.