Healthy Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program
Condition: Eating Disorders; Body Image Disturbance
MeSH terms: Feeding and Eating Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Eating disorders (ED) are serious mental health illnesses interfering psychological, physical
      and social well-being. Besides the severity of ED, most of the individuals presenting
      symptoms are either not detected or treated. Among ones undergoing treatment, full recovery
      and remission are also not very likely. Given many negative consequences of ED and personal,
      sociocultural and financial barriers for ED treatment and low rates of full recovery, any
      intervention for preventing the development and/or chronicization of ED would be a useful
      step for the improvement of public health.

      Literature has established that Turkish people represent unhealthy eating attitudes and
      behaviours as similar to Western societies. Evidence shows that the prevalence of disordered
      eating attitudes and behaviours in Turkey changed between 2.2% to 12.8%. Prevalence of ED
      particularly among university students and these problems are also likely to negatively
      influence students' psychological, social and physical well-being, relationships with pairs,
      educational attainment and academic success. However, awareness regarding ED, help-seeking
      and receiving treatment appears to be less likely.

      Since there is no ED prevention program available for university students in Turkey, it was
      aimed to develop a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy oriented 6 session ED prevention program
      (Healthy Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program) for female university students
      presenting a high risk for ED. A further aim was to examine feasibility, acceptability and
      efficacy of this program.

      Evidence-based clinical guidelines for ED have indicated that CBT is consistently recommended
      for all subtypes of ED, and CBT oriented prevention programs have been shown to result in a
      better outcome for university students. Therefore, it was expected that university students
      who participated in 6 session Healthy Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program would
      present significantly greater reductions in ED related psychopathology, body dissatisfaction,
      emotion regulation difficulties and internalization and pressure of sociocultural attitudes
      towards appearance compared to participants in active control group condition (single session
      Eating Disorders and Body Dissatisfaction: A Group Work) and wait-list control condition.
      Also, it was expected that the level of acceptability and feasibility of 6 session Healthy
      Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program would be good.
    


Intervention name(s): Healthy Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program (Experimental Group Condition); Eating Disorders and Body Dissatisfaction: A Group Work (Active Control Group Condition)
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The program has been developed by Clinical Psychologist Başak İnce and Psychiatrist Prof. Dr Başak Yücel. The session topics and contents of this program were based on the Fairburn (2008)'s book titled Cognitive- Behavior Treatment and Eating Disorders and 10-week online version of StudentBodies program designed by Saekow and her colleagues (2015). Program protocol was written based on Fairburn (2008)'s book titled Cognitive- Behavior Treatment and Eating Disorders and Fursland and her colleagues (2007)'s book titled Overcoming Disordered Eating.
This program aimed to inform participants about the causes and consequences of eating disorders, teach cognitive and behavioural techniques to change their unhealthy eating attitudes and behaviours, and provide support during their attitudinal and behavioural changes. Each week, participants were asked to complete homework activities which were related to topics covered in each session.; This single-session group program was designed as an active control group for the purpose of this study. The content of the program was prepared based on Stice and his colleagues (2013)'s four - sessions Body Project eating disorders prevention program. This single-session program aimed to inform participants about causes and consequences of eating disorders, and discuss "thin ideal" messages created by media and the negative impact of these messages on women's body images, and address possible ways of countering these messages. Detailed information regarding the covered topics and video presentations in the group session is provided below.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Eligible participants were randomly assigned to 6-session Healthy Eating Attitudes and Behaviours Group Program (experimental group condition), single session Eating Disorders and Body Dissatisfaction: A Group Work (active control group condition) or wait-list control group condition.
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: eating disorders; prevention; university students; cognitive behavioural