NCT03693911: AcceptME

ACT to Prevent Eating Disorders: Evaluating a Gamified Prevention Program

Status unknown NA Last updated 3 October 2018

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in High Risk for Eating Disorder in 92 participants. Status unknown.

Timeline

14 January 2016

Primary endpoint
5 May 2018

30 January 2019

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	University of Cyprus
Phase	NA
Status	Status unknown
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	prevention
Enrollment	92
Start date	14 January 2016
Primary completion	5 May 2018
Estimated completion	30 January 2019
Sites	1 location across Cyprus

Drugs / interventions tested

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Conditions studied

• High Risk for Eating Disorder — all drugs for High Risk for Eating Disorder →
• Eating Disorders in Adolescence — all drugs for Eating Disorders in Adolescence →
• Acceptance Processes — all drugs for Acceptance Processes →

Sponsor

University of Cyprus

Who can join

Adults 13 to 25, female only, with High Risk for Eating Disorder or Eating Disorders in Adolescence. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Eating Disorders (ED) constitute a serious public health issue that affects predominantly women and appears typically in adolescence or early adulthood. ED are extremely difficult to treat as these disorders are ego-syntonic and many patients do not seek treatment. As ED are associated with significant adverse medical and psychological consequences, it is vital to focus on the development of successful prevention programs. Even though, in the last two decades significant steps have been made over the development of efficacious and effective ED prevention programs, there is room for improvement in regards to effect sizes. Prevention programs for ED to date have focussed on either reducing the pursuit of the thin ideal or on disputing and replacing unrealistic thoughts with regard to food, body and weigh. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the functional relationship between ED symptomatology and control of emotional states either by avoiding or inhibiting emotional responses. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness and acceptability of a digital Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based prevention program in comparison to a wait-list control group for young women identified to be at risk for ED. The goals of the study were to describe the development of the AcceptME protocol and digitalized program, assess participants' feedback and the acceptability of the program, and examine the effectiveness of the ACT-based prevention program compared to a wait-list control group. This prevention program has several innovations: a) it is based on ACT theory and practices; b) it uses gamification principles to create a program appealing to adolescents; c) it targets behaviour change in individuals via helping a digital character overcome difficulties in the digitalized program.

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Randomized Clinical Trial Evaluating <i>AcceptME</i>-A Digital Gamified Acceptance and Commitment Early Intervention Program for Individuals at High Risk for Eating Disorders.
   Karekla M, Nikolaou P, Merwin RM. · · 2022 · cited 13× · PMID 35407386 · DOI 10.3390/jcm11071775