An online skills-based educational tool for eating disorders: SkillED Program Evaluation

The SkillED Program is an online self-help education program. It is aimed for users 14 years+ who are experiencing subclinical or clinical symptoms of an eating disorder. The SkillED program draws upon the key principles of cognitive behaviour therapy and is therefore in accordance with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of eating disorders (Hay et al., 2014).  It offers 11 modules including 5 core modules of evidence-based psychoeducation and skills, such as motivation, self-monitoring, disordered and regular eating, and 6 optional modules selected by participants including role of cognition, emotions, external triggers, dietary rules, body image and relapse prevention. Participants will be given one-week to complete each module. Participants will have access to the SkillED Program up for to 26 weeks from initial enrolment (depending on their selection of optional modules). Users of SkillED will be required to complete 5 core modules before being able to access the optional 6 modules which they can self-select. The additional six modules are optional and can be repeated as often as desired within the access period. Each module is approximately 40-50 minutes long and include a series of short videos as well as interactive activities and quizzes. Participants will be asked to select which optional modules they would like to complete at the beginning of the program, and also to reconfirm their selection of optional modules after completing the core modules so that, if desired, they can adjust their choices to better suit to their learning needs. An adjunct digital self-monitoring tool is available as part of the SkillED program (i.e., treatment tools that will enable participants to self-monitor their activities during the program e.g., Food Monitoring, Behaviour Monitoring, Food Planner, Thought Challenge, and Exposure Tool). To assess engagement with the SkillED program, we will collect usage data. When participants use the SkillED Program, the digital platform itself will automatically record usage patterns.

The SkillED Program is an online self-help education program. It is aimed for users 12 years+ who are experiencing subclinical or clinical symptoms of an eating disorder. The SkillED program draws upon the key principles of cognitive behaviour therapy and is therefore in accordance with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of eating disorders (Hay et al., 2014). It offers 11 modules including 5 core modules of evidence-based psychoeducation and skills, such as motivation, self-monitoring, disordered and regular eating, and 6 optional modules selected by participants including role of cognition, emotions, external triggers, dietary rules, body image and relapse prevention. Participants will be given one-week to complete each module. Participants will have access to the SkillED Program up for to 26 weeks from initial enrolment (depending on their selection of optional modules). Users of SkillED will be provided with two options for completing SkillED. All participants are required to complete the first 5 core modules of the 11-module program, however, for the remaining 6 modules, they will be asked to choose between two options: (1) full program: complete all 6 modules in a pre-designed weekly order, or (2) choose your own adventure: complete as many of the 6 modules as they like, in whichever order they want. Each module is approximately 40-50 minutes long and include a series of short videos as well as interactive activities and quizzes. An adjunct digital self-monitoring tool is available as part of the SkillED program (i.e., treatment tools that will enable participants to self-monitor their activities during the program e.g., Food Monitoring, Behaviour Monitoring, Food Planner, Thought Challenge, and Exposure Tool). Just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) will be implemented. The participants will be randomly assigned to one of two engagement-based conditions: (1) JITAI - Personalised clinical contact in response to inactivity on digital platform or low-self reported motivation, or (2) No JITAI - No intervention in response to inactivity or low self-reported intervention. To assess engagement with the SkillED program, we will collect usage data. When participants use the SkillED Program, the digital platform itself will automatically record usage patterns.