Clinical trial NCT04118972: In the Mirror: Functional Appreciated Bodies (IM FAB)
Official title: In the Mirror: Functional Appreciated Bodies (IM FAB): Piloting an Easily Disseminable Primary Prevention Program
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Eating Disorder Symptom
Body Image Disturbance
Lead sponsor: Union College, New York
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University at Albany
First posted: 2019-10-08
Enrollment: 275
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Participants are randomly assigned to one of two active conditions or a control group.
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: The current project aims to examine the concept of promoting attention toward body functionality and gratitude using a weekly functionality-based mirror exposure and body functionality gratitude "journaling" text prompts three days a week for three weeks to examine whether this helps foster positive body image and decrease eating disorder symptoms in a sample of undergraduate females, a population at particularly high risk of body image dissatisfaction and consequent eating disorder development.

Detailed description: Specific Aim 1. First, the project aims to test a gratitude-based body functionality primary prevention program, In the Mirror: Functional Appreciated Bodies (IM FAB), that incorporates mirror exposure with a greater intervention "dose" than that piloted by Brooks and Walker. The increased dose should allow for greater ability for participants to consolidate exposure-based learning. Specifically, more time instructed to appreciate the body's functionality allows for more occasions to redirect critical appearance-oriented cognitions to appreciative, function-based cognitions.

Specific Aim 2. Second, the project aims to pilot test a relatively minimalistic intervention that would be easily translated to app-based delivery format, to help overcome the most-cited barriers to prevention program participation noted by undergraduate students in universal prevention research. Specifically, undergraduate participants who were assigned to a prevention program but did not enroll questioned a need for counseling/therapy, reported preferring to deal with issues on their own, and cited a lack of time as reasons they did not enroll.

Specific Aim 3. Third, the project aims to test this specific functionality mirror exposure approach largely on its own, rather than as part of a multicomponent treatment program, so that its unique contribution in preventing body image dissatisfaction, and ultimately eating disorders, can be assessed. A main goal in prevention and treatment development remains to continuously test components of body-image interventions separately for efficacy.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Undergraduate female aged 18-23 years.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Self-definition as having an active eating disorder
* Participation in the Body Project

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Multidimensional Body Self-Relations Questionnaire scores (MBSRQ; Cash, 2000)
timeFrame: Change from Baseline MBSRQ scores to 20 weeks
measure: Change in Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale scores (EDDS; Stice, Fisher & Martinez, 2004)
timeFrame: Change from baseline EDDS scores to 20 weeks
measure: Change in Body Checking Questionnaire scores (BCQ; Reas, Whisenhunt, Netemeyer, & Williamson, 2002)
timeFrame: Change from baseline BCQ scores to 20 weeks
measure: Change in Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire scores (BIAQ; Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg, & Wendt, 1991)
timeFrame: Change from baseline BIAQ scores to 20 weeks
measure: Change in Body Appreciation Scale-2 scores (BAS-2; Tylka, & Wood-Barcalow, 2015)
timeFrame: Change from baseline BAS-2 scores to 20 weeks
measure: Change in Functional Appreciation Scale scores (FAS; Alleva, Tylka, & Van Deist, 2017)
timeFrame: Change from baseline FAS scores to 20 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Usability Metric for User Experience (UMUX; Finstad, 2010)
timeFrame: Post-Intervention (Week 3)
measure: Feasibility of mobile application scale, derived from UMUX format
timeFrame: Post-Intervention (Week 3)
measure: Engagement with IMFAB protocol scale, derived from UMUX format.
timeFrame: Post-Intervention (Week 3)
Other outcomes:
measure: Gratitude Text Responses - Qualitative
timeFrame: Days 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12
Locations:
city: Albany
country: United States
facility: University at Albany, State University of New York
state: New York
city: Schenectady
country: United States
facility: Union College
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: Union College
name: D. Catherine Walker
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Cash TF, Fleming EC, Alindogan J, Steadman L, Whitehead A. Beyond body image as a trait: the development and validation of the Body Image States Scale. Eat Disord. 2002 Summer;10(2):103-13. doi: 10.1080/10640260290081678.
citation: Cash TF, Green GK. Body weight and body image among college women: perception, cognition, and affect. J Pers Assess. 1986 Summer;50(2):290-301. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5002_15.
citation: Tylka TL, Wood-Barcalow NL. The Body Appreciation Scale-2: item refinement and psychometric evaluation. Body Image. 2015 Jan;12:53-67. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.09.006. Epub 2014 Oct 21.
citation: Reas DL, Whisenhunt BL, Netemeyer R, Williamson DA. Development of the body checking questionnaire: a self-report measure of body checking behaviors. Int J Eat Disord. 2002 Apr;31(3):324-33. doi: 10.1002/eat.10012.
citation: Alleva JM, Tylka TL, Kroon Van Diest AM. The Functionality Appreciation Scale (FAS): Development and psychometric evaluation in U.S. community women and men. Body Image. 2017 Dec;23:28-44. doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.07.008. Epub 2017 Aug 17.
citation: Stice E, Telch CF, Rizvi SL. Development and validation of the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale: a brief self-report measure of anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder. Psychol Assess. 2000 Jun;12(2):123-31. doi: 10.1037//1040-3590.12.2.123.
citation: Stice E, Fisher M, Martinez E. Eating disorder diagnostic scale: additional evidence of reliability and validity. Psychol Assess. 2004 Mar;16(1):60-71. doi: 10.1037/1040-3590.16.1.60.
citation: Froh JJ, Fan J, Emmons RA, Bono G, Huebner ES, Watkins P. Measuring gratitude in youth: assessing the psychometric properties of adult gratitude scales in children and adolescents. Psychol Assess. 2011 Jun;23(2):311-24. doi: 10.1037/a0021590.