None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The current study aims to investigate the outcomes, benefits and feasibility of a brief evidence-based eating disorder prevention program within an Australian youth mental health service (at headspace Camperdown). This program is the Body Project program, which is a well-established eating disorder (ED) prevention program. The study aims to investigate the feasibility of this program in a sample of young Australians (between ages 12-25). Specifically, this study aims to compare outcomes (including body image concerns/outcomes, eating disorder symptomatology and general psychological distress) between the those who complete the Body Project program at headspace (our Treatment Group) and those who do not complete the Body Project program but who do continue to access their standard care at headspace (Treatment-as-usual Control group), and compare outcomes pre-treatment, post-treatment and at one month follow-up. By conducting this study we hope to assess the potential utility of such a brief and low-cost program within the headspace centre setting which, if found to be effective, could be rolled out nationally (to the 150+ headspace centres around Australia) as an early intervention approach to preventing the development of eating disorders amongst Australian youth. We hypothesise that our study results will demonstrate that attending the Body Project group program embedded into the headspace youth mental health service model will effectively reduce symptoms of eating disorders, body image concerns and psychological distress for young Australians at risk of developing an eating disorder.
Interventions
Intervention: Attendance at 4 x 1.5hour group psychology sessions following the manualised program of 'The Body Project' by Stice, Rohde & Shaw (2012).
Body Project Group sessions will take place weekly at headspace Camperdown, over 4 weeks. Sessions will last 90mins. Groups will consist of up to 10 participants.
Allocation to the intervention group occurs by 'participant choice' - All consenting participants of the study will be invited to attend the group program and places in the groups wil
Intervention: Attendance at 4 x 1.5hour group psychology sessions following the manualised program of 'The Body Project' by Stice, Rohde & Shaw (2012). Body Project Group sessions will take place weekly at headspace Camperdown, over 4 weeks. Sessions will last 90mins. Groups will consist of up to 10 participants. Allocation to the intervention group occurs by 'participant choice' - All consenting participants of the study will be invited to attend the group program and places in the groups will be allocated on a 'first-come' basis. Groups will be facilitated by a clinical psychology Masters student (under supervision of a senior clinical psychologist) and supported by a co-facilitator (either a second clinical psychology Masters student under supervision or a mental health professional such as a psychologist or social worker). Group session contents and structure will follow the outlined procedure in the Body Project treatment manual by Stice, Rohde & Shaw (2012).
Sponsors
The University of Technology Sydney
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
12 Years to 25 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Participants must be young people seeking support from headspace Camperdown. • Age range: 12-25 years. • Willingness to give informed consent, and willingness to participate to and comply with the study.
Exclusion criteria
The following criteria will be applied but are also a pre-existing criteria for clients attending headspace Camperdown therefore any interested participants are very unlikely to be screened out based on the below criteria. • Patients with a history of a psychological illness or condition such as to interfere with the patient's ability to understand the requirements of the study. • Patients with a disease that is likely to interfere with the evaluation of the patient's safety and of the study outcome.
Outcome results
None listed