Emotion-Related Treatments in Patients With Binge Eating Episodes-a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Abstract

Emotions represent potential triggers for binge eating, and binge eating can serve as a dysfunctional emotion regulation strategy. Therefore, we investigated emotion-related treatments in patients with binge eating in a systematic review. Change in binge eating were the primary outcome; eating disorder pathology and emotion-related outcomes were secondary outcomes. A meta-analysis was computed regarding pre-changes and post-changes in binge eating frequency within groups, and potential influencing factors were investigated, namely, BMI, eating disorder diagnosis, treatment type, aspects of BE outcome, age, and sex. Thirty-eight articles were included and 31 within the meta-analysis. Data quality was rated as moderate. The sample size varied strongly with a high proportion of women. Only five studies examined adolescents. Binge eating disorder (n = 18) and dialectical behavioral treatment (n = 16) were most frequently examined. Results show significant reductions in binge eating after treatment. Additionally, the systematic review indicates the superiority of emotion-related treatments compared with waitlist control groups and comparability with active control groups in terms of improvements in binge eating, eating disorder pathology, and emotion regulation. The effects appear to be stable at follow-up analyses from 1 to 12 months. Potential influencing factors did not affect the efficacy of emotion-related treatments. Overall, though meta-analytic results have to be interpreted with caution, emotion-related treatments hold promise in treating binge eating, and emotion regulation might represent a potential mechanism of change.