Currently accepted at: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 13, 2024
Date Accepted: Jan 30, 2025
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/66465
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Virtual Versus In-Person Intensive Outpatient Treatment for Eating Disorders During the COVID-19 Pandemic in United States Based Treatment Facilities: A Naturalistic Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
While virtual therapy has been found to be effective in treating eating disorders (EDs), little work has examined virtual therapy at higher levels of care.
Objective:
The purpose of the current study was to add to the limited research on in-person versus virtual treatment at a higher level of care by comparing treatment outcomes between an in-person intensive outpatient program (IOP) and a virtual IOP (VIOP) for patients with EDs.
Methods:
Patients receiving treatment who completed both admission and discharge questionnaires in VIOP treatment (N = 231) and in-person IOP treatment (N = 39) between 2021 and mid-2022 within a large ED healthcare system were included in the study. Welch’s t-tests on admission, discharge, and raw change scores were conducted. Adjusted logistic regressions were conducted predicting treatment program (VIOP vs. IOP) from residualized change in each outcome.
Results:
VIOP patients were significantly older (M=28.03, SD=11.09) than IOP patients (M=19.51, SD=6.98) and had significantly different numbers of ED diagnoses, but no differences were observed for race or gender. VIOP patients did not exhibit significantly different improvements in ED symptom scores or depression scores when compared to IOP patients, controlling for age, diagnosis, and admission scores.
Conclusions:
No evidence suggested ED or depression outcomes were different for patients receiving VIOP treatment versus IOP treatment. Moreover, no evidence suggested VIOP treatment was more likely to exacerbate disparities in treatment access for non-white or older adults. These results suggest VIOP treatment may improve treatment access in an equitable fashion without reducing treatment quality.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.