| Summary: | The purpose of this research was to develop and evaluate a 5-week readiness for change precursor to group cognitive-behavioral therapy for individuals with eating disorders. Group content was based on the theories of the Transtheoretical Model of Change and Motivational Interviewing, and also included an experiential pretraining component. Forty-six medically stable individuals with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) were recruited from the Adult Eating Disorders Program at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Canada. Participants completed measures of readiness for change, eating disorder symptomatology, and treatment outcome at three time points: pre- and post-readiness precursor, and post-cognitive-behavioral group. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance, regression analysis, and Cochran’s Q analysis were used to investigate hypotheses. Results revealed that participants’ readiness for change increased significantly following the readiness group. However, despite changes in readiness, stage of change awareness and cognitive-behavioral treatment drop-out rates were not significantly improved. In was concluded that motivational interventions appear to be an effective way to increase readiness for change in the eating disorders, however more research is needed to determine whether increases in readiness have a significant impact on treatment outcome.
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