Erste Evidenz für eine Online-Schulung zu körperbezogenen repetitiven Verhaltensweisen

Most individuals with body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) do not receive adequate evidence-based treatment, which can be attributed to a multitude of factors, e.g., knowledge gap of clinicians or shame and self-stigmatization of those affected. Therefore, an online training was developed, primarily aimed at educating clinicians about the etiology, diagnostics and evidence-based treatment approaches for BFRBs. The present study investigated whether specialist personnel and individuals with BFRBs can also benefit from this online training in terms of knowledge acquisition (examined for both groups) and symptom improvement (examined only for patients with BFRBs). A single-armed feasibility study was carried out with a sample of 44 patients and 32 personnel from the medical, psychotherapeutic and scientific fields. Knowledge on BFRBs (tested for both groups) and symptom severity (determined by the generic body-focused repetitive behavior scale 8, GBS‑8; patients only) were measured before and after taking part in the online training. Knowledge was improved in both groups with a large effect size (η_p² = 0.261) and patients showed a clear decline in symptom severity, also with a large effect size (d = 0.87). A significant association between the number of modules processed and knowledge gain was found but not between the number of modules processed and symptom improvement in the patients. While the lack of a control group limits the interpretability of the results, the significant effects justify the performance of a controlled follow-up study particularly considering the demand for optimized treatment options for BFRBs.