Abstract
BACKGROUND: Obesity is common among children and adolescents and leads to unpleasant consequences for them. Unified transdiagnostic therapy as an emotion-based therapy has many applications in the field of emotional disorders, and its effectiveness has been investigated in various fields. Since obesity also involves emotional issues, this research is intended for the purpose to investigate the effectiveness of this treatment on negative affect, anxiety, and emotion regulation problems in obese children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study is a controlled clinical trial and was conducted in 2023. Forty children with obesity have been selected using the convenience sample method and randomly assigned to two experiential and control groups in a randomized controlled trial and assessor blinded study. For 8 weeks, the experiential group participated in a transdiagnostic treatment session lasting approximately 2 months; each session will last for 90 min. Participants from both the experiential and control groups completed Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for children, Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, and Emotion Regulation Checklist as a pretest and posttest. Participants completed study questionnaires before treatment, immediately after, and at a follow-up 2-4 months later. A statistical method was used for the analysis of variance. RESULTS: In the experiential group, anxiety, negative affects and difficulties in emotion regulation significantly decreased (P < 0/05). In the control group, these changes were not observed. CONCLUSION: The results have shown that a unified transdiagnosis therapy is an efficient in reducing negative effects, anxiety, and difficulties in emotion regulation. Since childhood obesity has unpleasant psychological consequences, psychological interventions to reduce its effects should be considered.