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The aim of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the effectiveness of group interpersonal therapy (IPT) in treating overweight patients with binge eating disorder who did not stop binge eating after 12 weeks of group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Participants in this study were randomly allocated to either group CBT or to an assessment-only control group. After 12 weeks of treatment with CBT, 55% of participants met criteria for improvement and began 12 weeks of weight loss therapy, whereas the nonresponders began 12 weeks of group IPT. Over the 24-week period, participants who received treatment reduced binge eating and weight significantly more than the waiting-list control group. However, IPT led to no further improvement for those who did not improve with CBT. Predictors of poor outcome were early onset of, and more severe, binge eating.

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Assessed condom use, barriers to condom use, oral contraceptive use, partnership status and STD history in 457 15-30 year-old women attending four family planning clinics. Subjects were classified into three condom use groups: Non Users (37%); Current Users (33%); and Past Users (30%). Factor analysis revealed five barriers to condom use: Partner's Perception, Peer's Perception, Pleasure/Intimacy, Communication, and Low Perceived Need. Multivariate analyses revealed significant group differences on only two barrier factors: Pleasure/Intimacy and Low Perceived Need. Low Perceived Need accounted for 13.5% of the variance in condom use. Women with low perceived need to use condoms were more likely to use oral contraceptives.

PIP: A survey of 457 female clients, 15-30 years old, recruited from 4 Vermont (US) Planned Parenthood clinics in 1990 identified low perceived need as a significant barrier to condom use. Although study subjects averaged 2.5 sexual partners in the preceding 2 years and 21.6% had a history of a sexually transmitted disease (STD), condoms were used an average of only 1.1 times out of the last 5 acts of intercourse. 37% of the clients had never used condoms, 30% were past users, and 33% had used condoms at least once during their last 5 sexual encounters. 82.1% of study subjects were current oral contraceptive (OC) users. Discriminant analysis identified 6 obstacles that predicted, cumulatively, 21.5% of the condom use category variance: low perceived need (13.5%), use of the pill (4.0%), number of sexual partners in the past 2 years (1.9%), age (0.8%), education (0.8%), and pleasure/intimacy (0.5%). These variables correctly identified 71% of condom nonusers, 65% of current users, and 18% of past users. When women were crudely divided into 2 categories based on estimated actual risk for STDs, there was no difference between the high and low risk groups in terms of perceived need score or condom use category. In addition, low perceived need was unrelated to knowledge, number of sexual partners, STD history, age, or education. There was, however, a positive association between low perceived need and OC use. These family planning clinic clients appear to be focused almost exclusively on pregnancy prevention rather than on a strategy that would confer simultaneous protection against STDs.

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Two studies on resting metabolic rate (RMR) in bulimia nervosa were conducted. The first study compared RMR before treatment in 25 normal-weight women with bulimia nervosa and 20 control subjects of similar height, weight, body composition, age, and activity level. No significant difference in RMR adjusted for fat-free weight was observed. The second study sought to determine whether RMR in women with bulimia nervosa changed if they ceased vomiting and resumed eating in a more normal fashion after cognitive-behavioral treatment. There was no differential change in RMR from pre- to posttreatment for the "improved" bulimics (9 of 12 subjects who received treatment) relative to 13 control subjects who were also tested twice at the same time intervals as the treated bulimia nervosa subjects. These findings do not support the hypothesis that normal-weight women with bulimia nervosa have a suppressed RMR, nor is it altered with treatment compared with matched control subjects.

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A comparison of cognitive-behavior therapy alone, desipramine alone, and cognitive-behavior therapy combined with desipramine was made in the treatment of bulimia nervosa. The study was terminated early with an N of only 7 subjects per condition because of a high drop-out rate and lack of positive response in the desipramine alone group compared to the other two groups. By this time it was also apparent that at posttreatment and at 6 months follow-up no benefit was being realized from combining cognitive-behavior therapy with desipramine.

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A comparison of male and female masturbation practices was undertaken in a sample of university students to determine if the long-standing finding that young adult men in this country masturbate more than young adult women was still evident in the 1980s. Despite the efforts in the past quarter century to encourage women in our society to take greater responsibility for their own bodies and their own sexuality and to engage in more sexual self-exploration and self-stimulation, results show that women continue to masturbate much less than men. Twice as many men as women had ever masturbated and the men who masturbated did so three times more frequently during early adolescence and young adulthood than the women who masturbated during these same age periods. A second purpose of this study was to determine whether having masturbation experience during preadolescence and/or early adolescence was related to intercourse experience, sexual satisfaction, sexual arousal, or sexual difficulties in relationships during young adulthood. No such linkage was observed, suggesting that early masturbation experience is neither beneficial nor harmful to sexual adjustment in young adulthood.

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