Preparing for Eating Disorders Treatment Through Compassionate Letter-Writing

University of Waterloo

Status: Invitation-only

Conditions: Compassion; Binge-Eating Disorder; Bulimia Nervosa; Eating Disorders; Anorexia Nervosa

Treatments: Other: Self-compassionate letter-writing intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04174703

41135

Details and patient eligibility

About

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) seeks to lower shame and help people develop compassion for personal distress and shortcomings. There is increasing evidence to support the benefits of incorporating CFT-based interventions into the treatment of eating disorders (EDs). Building on the investigators' prior research, this study will examine the effects of a two-week CFT-based self-compassion letter-writing intervention on patients with eating disorders. Participants will be recruited from the wait-list of patients scheduled to begin treatment at the outpatient St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton Eating Disorders Program, and will be randomly assigned to the two-week letter-writing intervention or to a control group. Results will inform the integration of new empirically-derived interventions into ED treatments to improve the currently dismal rates of ED recovery.

Full description

The study consists of two phases. In phase one, participants will be randomly assigned to a two-week daily letter-writing intervention condition or a two-week control condition; phase one will occur two to four weeks prior to the start date of group ED treatment. Participants will complete a brief set of online questionnaires pre-, mid-, and post- two-week condition (i.e. baseline, after one week, and after two weeks).

Following these two weeks of intervention/control condition, all participants will complete a 25-week group treatment program as scheduled by the Eating Disorders Program. For phase two of the study, participants will be asked to complete questionnaires after 5 weeks, after 11 weeks, and post-group treatment. Data that is routinely collected as part of patients' clinical care pre- and post-treatment (i.e. on the first day and last week of group treatment) will also be collected.

Enrollment: 160 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 17+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

1. DSM-5 diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder
2. Eligible to start group eating disorders treatment at St. Joseph's Eating Disorder Program
3. 17 years of age or older

Exclusion Criteria: None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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160 participants in 2 patient groups

Self-compassionate letter-writing intervention

Experimental group

Description:

An online self-compassionate letter-writing task once per day (10-20 minutes each) for 2 weeks

Treatment:

Other: Self-compassionate letter-writing intervention

Control condition

No Intervention group