A preliminary study of latent trajectories of change in dietary restraint during CBT-E for bulimia-spectrum eating disorders and their associations with treatment response.

Objective: Dietary restraint is a primary target of CBT-E. However, little research has examined how specific types of dietary restraint change during CBT-E for bulimia-spectrum eating disorders (BN-EDs) or the association between changes in dietary restraint and treatment response. This study examined latent trajectories of change in eating enough, eating a range of macronutrients, and following dietary rules during CBT-E for BN-EDs and the relationships between these trajectories and pre- to post-treatment change in BN symptoms and remission.

Method: Participants were 56 adults with BN-EDs who received 16 sessions of CBT-E and completed the Eating Disorder Examination and ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of eating behaviors and BN symptoms. Latent growth mixture modeling identified trajectories of change in dietary restraint, which were compared on pre- to post-treatment BN symptom change and remission.

Results: Three trajectories of change were identified for eating enough, eating a range of macronutrients, and food rules. Trajectories of change in eating enough were differentially associated with pre- to post-treatment change in BN symptoms, and trajectories of change in eating a range of macronutrients and food rules were differentially associated with remission.

Conclusions: CBT-E yields heterogeneous trajectories of change in dietary restraint, which are associated with treatment response.