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Article history:
Received 19 July 2011
Received in revised form
28 August 2011
Accepted 8 September 2011
As psychology has moved toward emphasizing evidence-based practice, use of treatment manuals has
extended from research trials into clinical practice. Minimal research has directly evaluated use of
manuals in clinical practice. This survey of international eating disorder professionals examined use of
manuals with 259 clinicians most recent client with bulimia nervosa. Although evidence-based manuals
for bulimia nervosa exist, only 35.9% of clinicians reported using a manual. Clinicians were more likely to
use a manual if they were younger; were treating an adult client; were clinical psychologists; were
involved in research related to eating disorders; and endorsed a cognitive-behavioral orientation.
Clinicians were less likely to use a manual if they provided eclectic psychotherapy that incorporated
multiple psychotherapeutic approaches. We conclude that psychotherapy provided in clinical practice
often does not align with the specic form validated in research trials, and eclecticism is at odds with
efforts to disseminate manuals into clinical practice.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Bulimia nervosa
Evidence-based practice
Psychological treatments
Psychotherapeutic techniques
Therapists attitudes
Technology transfer
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 (403) 220 7085; fax: 1 (403) 282 8249.
E-mail addresses: lmwallac@ucalgary.ca (L.M. Wallace), kvonrans@ucalgary.ca
(K.M. von Ranson).
0005-7967/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.brat.2011.09.002
816
L.M. Wallace, K.M. von Ranson / Behaviour Research and Therapy 49 (2011) 815e820
BN is a disorder for which there is ample evidence for an efcacious, manual-based treatment (National Institute for Health and
Clinical Excellence, 2011) e i.e., cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT;
Fairburn, Marcus, & Wilson, 1993). Manual-based treatment for BN
also exists for interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT; Klerman &
Weissman, 1993), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT; Safer, Telch,
& Chen, 2009), family-based therapy (FBT; Le Grange & Lock,
2007), and motivational enhancement therapy (MET; see Dunn,
Neighbors, & Larimer, 2006). However, it may take longer with
IPT to attain similar improvement as CBT (Fairburn, Jones, Peveler,
Hope, & OConnor, 1993), and the efcacy of DBT (Safer, Telch, &
Agras, 2001), FBT (Le Grange, Crosby, Rathouz, & Leventhal,
2007), and MET (Dunn et al., 2006) is less well established. The
majority of these manuals have been designed for and evaluated
with adults, not adolescents, with the exception of FBT (Le Grange
et al., 2007; Schmidt et al., 2007) and CBT guided self-care (Schmidt
et al., 2007).
Method
Participants
Potential participants were identied through the member
directories of two international organizations for ED research,
treatment, and prevention: the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED)
and the Eating Disorders Research Society (EDRS). Both the AED
and EDRS are primarily English-language organizations. To be
eligible to participate in the present study, members must have
provided multiple sessions of psychotherapy to at least one individual with BN in the past 12 months.
Measures
An online survey was created, with a section that instructed
participants to recall the most recent client with BN to whom
psychotherapy had been provided across multiple sessions in the
past 12 months. The term client was noted to refer to an individual seen in clinical practice, not a research participant. This
distinction was made because research protocol often dictates
exactly how treatment is provided in research settings, unlike in
clinical practice.
The target survey item asked participants, Did you use
a manual when providing this psychotherapy? Other items
explored characteristics of the clinician (i.e., the participant), the
client, and the treatment approach used.
Procedure
Ethics approval was obtained from the institutional research
ethics board prior to contacting potential participants. Potential
participants were sent a personalized email message that invited
participation in the study, contained an electronic link to an online
survey, and detailed the opportunity to enter a draw for a prize.
Two reminder emails were distributed 7 and 17 days after the initial
email to non-respondents. All participants indicated their consent
to participate prior to beginning the survey, and all identifying
information was deleted from all records once data collection was
complete.
Coding
An open-ended item that asked participants to indicate the
psychotherapeutic approach(es) provided to his/her most recent
client with BN was coded independently by three coders (a clinical
psychologist and researcher [KMvR], a masters student in clinical
psychology [LMW], and a clinical psychology doctoral student, all
L.M. Wallace, K.M. von Ranson / Behaviour Research and Therapy 49 (2011) 815e820
817
Table 2
Characteristics of the clinician, client, and treatment approach associated with use of
a manual when providing psychotherapy for bulimia nervosa (N 259).
Characteristic
Manual c2
used
119
124
187
59
91
50
105
109
137
139
120
43.7%
31.5%
35.8%
40.7%
31.9%
28.0%
45.7%
45.0%
30.7%
49.6%
20.0%
Results
An email message describing the study was sent to 1297 individuals who had their name and email address listed in the
member directory of AED and/or EDRS. Sixty-seven of these
messages were undeliverable. Of the 1230 potential participants
whose emails did not bounce back, 36.3% (n 446) responded. Of
the respondents, 2.7% (n 12) declined participation, 36.3%
(n 162) were ineligible to participate (i.e., had not provided
psychotherapy to a client with BN in the past 12 months), and 61.0%
(n 272) were eligible and participated (i.e., 22.1% of 1230 potential
participants). As 4.8% of the 272 eligible participants did not answer
the target item regarding manual use, data from these participants
were discarded. Therefore, the following results present data from
259 participants. Percentages reported have been calculated from
the total number of valid responses for each respective item.
Manual use
See Table 1 for demographic characteristics of the sample.
Participants could indicate use of multiple manuals with multiple
psychotherapeutic approaches. Only 35.9% (n 93) of participants
indicated that they had used a manual when providing psychotherapy to their most recent client with BN. Of these participants,
84.9% (n 79) were able to report the author of the manual, or
otherwise specify the manual (e.g., indicate the title). The most
common psychotherapeutic approach for which participants had
used a manual was CBT (66.7%, n 62), followed by DBT (18.3%,
n 17).
Factors inuencing manual use
We used Pearsons chi-square analyses to examine associations
between use of a manual and characteristics of the clinician,
treatment approach, and client treated. See Table 2 for results.
Relatedly, we used an independent samples t-test to compare the
number of years participants had been providing psychotherapy to
clients with EDs across participants who did and did not use
a manual. No signicant difference was found.
Table 1
Demographic characteristics of the sample (N 246e259).
Variable
% or M (SD)
Sex
Female
Male
81.1%
18.9%
Age
<45 Years
45 Years
49.0%
51.0%
4.9%
32.1%
20.3%
42.7%
Clinical psychology
Medicine/psychiatry
Applied/counseling psychology
Social work
Other
48.0%
16.2%
12.7%
11.3%
11.8%
Current student
Yes
No
14.7%
85.3%
14.53 (9.69)
Clinician
Age
Country of work/school
Highest degree obtained
132
83
125
132
47.0%
24.1%
47.0%
24.8%
3.87*
.45
6.19*b
5.32*
24.59***
3.93*
.02
11.30**
13.67***
a
Other countries include countries in Europe, Australia, southeast Asia, South
America, and southern Africa.
b
Follow-up analyses indicated that participants with a Ph.D. or Psy.D. were more
likely to use a manual than participants with an M.D. (c2(1) 4.43, p < .05) and
participants with a masters degree or lower (c2(1) 3.92, p < .05). *p < .05,
**p < .01, ***p < .001.
Cognitive-behavioral orientation
Although participants who endorsed a cognitive-behavioral
theoretical orientation were more likely than those who did not to
have used a manual, still only 47% of these participants reported
having used a manual. To identify potential predictors of the use of
manuals by CBT providers, we conducted a Pearsons chi-square
analysis to determine whether use of a manual among cognitivebehaviorally oriented participants was associated with clinician
characteristics associated with manual use in the larger sample: the
level and eld of education they had received. Results were
signicant: cognitive-behaviorally oriented participants with
a Ph.D. or Psy.D. in clinical psychology were more likely to have
used a manual than cognitive-behaviorally oriented participants
with either a Ph.D./Psy.D. from an alternative eld or no Ph.D./
Psy.D. (68.9% vs. 35.6%; c2(1) 13.17, p < .001).
Discussion
This study surveying use of manuals in psychotherapy provision
for BN provides information relevant to the current movement
toward evidence-based practice in mental health. Overall, the data
suggested a low rate of manual use for psychotherapy provision:
only approximately one-third of participants indicated that they
had used a manual when treating their most recent client with BN.
Analysis of variables describing the clinician, client, and treatment
approach provided insight into factors associated with the likelihood that a manual was used.
With respect to clinician characteristics, education was associated with the decision to use a manual: participants were more
likely to use a manual if they had obtained a Ph.D. or Psy.D., and/or
if they received their highest degree in clinical psychology. Thus,
targeting efforts for manual dissemination at clinicians without
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