Predictors of treatment response and relapse for comprehensive behavioral treatment of trichotillomania

<p>Previous research on treatment of trichotillomania (TTM) has shown need for improvement in treatment response and relapse, variance in which may be due to the wide variation of hair-pulling triggers and behaviors in those with TTM. The comprehensive behavioral (ComB) model of treatment, designed to identify and address each individual's hair-pulling modalities, may address these concerns but has not been well-studied. The present study is a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial of ComB for TTM (Carlson et al., 2021) using immediate intervention and waitlist conditions, with three-month follow-up. We investigated age, disorder history, pulling style, and baseline severity as predictors of treatment response and age, disorder history, and post-treatment hair-pulling abstinence as predictors of relapse following treatment using stepwise linear regression. Older age significantly predicted lower TTM severity following treatment, the opposite direction as predicted. Lower pre-treatment severity significantly predicted lower severity of TTM at the three-month follow-up. Future research should investigate age as a possible predictor of treatment response and continue to investigate post-treatment hair-pulling abstinence and pre-treatment severity as predictors of maintenance of treatment response.</p>