Safety Behavior Fading Versus Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Appearance Concerns

Florida State University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Eating Disorders; Social Anxiety Disorder; Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Safety Behavior Fading for Appearance Concerns; Behavioral: Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07589621

STUDY00007433

Details and patient eligibility

About

The current study aims to explore the efficacy of a text message based safety behavior fading intervention compared to a progressive muscle relaxation intervention for appearance concerns.

Full description

Appearance-related safety behavior fading intervention procedures will follow methodology previously used in the Cougle Lab. The safety behavior fading intervention is designed to target a decrease or elimination of appearance-related safety behaviors. Individuals randomly assigned to the safety behavior fading condition will receive instructions to decrease or eliminate their endorsed appearance-related safety behaviors. In addition, they will receive daily reminders via text message to decrease these behaviors, along with a safety behavior monitoring checklist in which the participant indicates the extent to which they decreased and/or eliminated each safety behavior over the previous day. The daily reminder will include the following language: "Hi! This is a friendly reminder to avoid using your checklist behaviors. Please tap the link below to access today's checklist: [link to checklist]." Text messages will be delivered using EZtexting a text messaging platform used for research and marketing. Note that no identifying information will be included in this platform. Each participants phone number will be accompanied with a anonymized ID code. Individuals randomly assigned to the progressive muscle relaxation condition will be instructed to try and practice it daily for the 28 days. They will also receive daily text messages to remind them to practice relaxation and they can log which of the 10 different muscle groups they tensed and released in the past day.

Enrollment: 300 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• being between the ages of 18 and 65 years old
• having an internet-capable smart-phone
• scoring at or above the empirical cutoff for appearance concerns measured by the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (i.e., 52)

Exclusion criteria

• changes in psychotropic medication in the last 4 weeks
• failing attention checks in baseline data collection

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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300 participants in 2 patient groups

Safety Behavior Fading

Experimental group

Description:

Individuals randomly assigned to the safety behavior fading condition will receive instructions to decrease or eliminate their endorsed appearance-related safety behaviors. In addition, they will receive daily reminders via text message to decrease these behaviors, along with a safety behavior monitoring checklist in which the participant indicates the extent to which they engaged in each safety behavior over the previous day.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Safety Behavior Fading for Appearance Concerns

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants in this condition will be instructed to try and practice progressive muscle relaxation daily for 28 days. To match safety behavior fading they will also receive daily text messages to remind them to practice relaxation and they can log which of the 10 different muscle groups they tensed and released in the past day.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Progressive Muscle Relaxation