The role of body image psychological flexibility on the treatment of eating disorders in a residential facility

Objective The purpose of this study was to test whether pre-treatment levels of psychological flexibility would longitudinally predict quality of life and eating disorder risk in patients at a residential treatment facility for eating disorders. Method Data on body image psychological flexibility, quality of life, and eating disorder risk were collected from 63 adolescent and 50 adult, female, residential patients (N = 113) diagnosed with an eating disorder. These same measures were again collected at post-treatment. Sequential multiple regression analyses were performed to test whether pre-treatment levels of psychological flexibility longitudinally predicted quality of life and eating disorder risk after controlling for age and baseline effects. Results Pre-treatment psychological flexibility significantly predicted post-treatment quality of life with approximately 19% of the variation being attributable to age and pre-treatment psychological flexibility. Pre-treatment psychological flexibility also significantly predicted post-treatment eating disorder risk with nearly 30% of the variation attributed to age and pre-treatment psychological flexibility. Discussion This study suggests that levels of psychological flexibility upon entering treatment for an eating disorder longitudinally predict eating disorder outcome and quality of life.