None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
What is the study about? Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental illness that is associated with much distress and difficulties for those living with the illness. There is still a lot we do not know about how to effectively treat anorexia nervosa. A new clinical resource has been developed for those with anorexia nervosa and subclinical anorexia. This resource contains the stories of recovery of former sufferers of the illness who have now been successfully recovered for five or more years. Adults who are eighteen years or over with anorexia nervosa or subclinical anorexia (i.e., Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 20) are invited to take part in a study that is investigating the effectiveness of this new resource. What does the study involve? This study involves firstly completing a brief questionnaire online to assess your eligibility for the study. If eligible, the study involves completing questionnaires online, which will ask you about your current eating habits, attitudes towards eating, shape, and weight, motivational issues, and your beliefs and attitudes about recovery. You will be asked to complete these questionnaires on either two or three occasions, two weeks apart. You will also be asked to read the resource, which contains five stories of recovery from anorexia. This will be emailed to your nominated email address. After reading the materials you are then invited to give feedback on the resource.
Interventions
After eligibility is assessed, participants will complete baseline measurements. Depending on randomisation, participants will then either receive the intervention or receive nothing as part of a wait-list control group. The intervention for this study is the reading stories of successful recovery from anorexia nervosa. The narratives are approximately 4,000 to 5,000 words each. Participants will be asked to read five narratives of recovery over a two week period. After two weeks, all participan
After eligibility is assessed, participants will complete baseline measurements. Depending on randomisation, participants will then either receive the intervention or receive nothing as part of a wait-list control group. The intervention for this study is the reading stories of successful recovery from anorexia nervosa. The narratives are approximately 4,000 to 5,000 words each. Participants will be asked to read five narratives of recovery over a two week period. After two weeks, all participants (both those in intervention and wait-list control group) will repeat the measures completed at baseline. The study will conclude for those in the intervention group. The wait-list control group will then receive the intervention. Two weeks later they will complete the measures again.
Sponsors
The University of Sydney
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Patients with all forms of clinically significant AN-type eating disorders will be recruited. This is to test whether the resource is effective across all clinically significant forms of AN and not merely the strict diagnostic criteria for AN, which many patients fall outside of. Participants will therefore meet the following inclusion criteria: be aged at least 18 years, and fulfil research criteria for AN phenotype, which are: (i) meeting criteria A and B of DSM-IV for AN (i.e. refusal to maintain a normal body weight and intense fear of weight gain); and (ii) BMI less than 20 kg/m2.
Exclusion criteria
Under age 18 or not proficient in English
Outcome results
None listed