Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Literature review

Abstract

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is characterized by a distorted perceptive behavior towards one body’s image and a concern with an imaginary defect in one’s appearance or an exaggerated distress about identified physical imperfections. The purpose of this research was to analyze psychological treatments to BDD, intervention proposals, the issues that were addressed, research type’s and designs chosen, by reviewing scientific production in the database Bireme and PubMed. A total of 83 articles on the subject were examined. Among them descriptive researches refer to 73% of the analyzed productions, whereas experimental research corresponds to the remainder 27%. In this latest group, different designs were observed, with researches based in control groups being however preponderant. In relation to the issues that were approached by the articles, it is remarkable that most of the studies analyzed proposed to make comparisons between individuals diagnosed with BDD with control groups (24%) and explore the characterization of BDD (23%). The most adequate treatment and epidemiology remain as issues to be explored.

Keywords: body image, systematic review, body dysmorphic disorder.