Clinical trial NCT06462300: Meaning-centered Intervention for Young Women With Weight and Shape Concerns
Official title: Searching for Meaning: A Study Examining the Effect of a Meaning-centered Intervention
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Eating Disorder Symptom
Lead sponsor: University of Groningen
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2024-06-17
Enrollment: 166
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 16
Maximum age (years): 35
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Female participants with weight and shape concerns will either receive a six-week meaning-centered intervention led by a trainer or be allocated to a waitlist condition. They will receive the same questionnaires at three time points: Before the intervention, immediately after, and four weeks later.

The researchers hypothesize that a meaning-centered intervention for young women with weight and shape issues will increase participants meaning in life and decrease their eating disorder symptoms immediately after the intervention and at 4-week follow-up when compared to a waitlist condition.

Detailed description: Female first-year psychology students at the University of Groningen will be screened for weight and shape concerns. Those scoring in the clinically relevant range will be invited to participate in the study. After filling out the baseline measures online, the participants will be randomly allocated to a waitlist or an intervention condition. Participants in the intervention condition will follow a weekly 1-hour online intervention with a trainer for six weeks, including homework assignments. In this intervention, the aim is to increase meaning in life and decrease eating disorder symptoms. All study materials will be offered in English, Dutch, or German. Immediately after the intervention and four weeks later, the participants will receive the same questionnaires again as at baseline. The waitlist participants will not receive any intervention during the six-week period between baseline and post-assessment, but receive the same questionnaires in the same timeframe. Waitlist participants will also have the option to receive the intervention after the study has been finished.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* When screened with the Weight Concerns Scale (WCS; Killen et al., 1994) and when scores of all five items were adjusted to equal a maximum score of 20, leading to a total range between 0 and 100 (cf. Jacobi et al., 2004), participant are eligible if they answer "always" or "often" to the item "Do you ever feel fat?" or have a total score ≥ 47 on the WCS or both

Exclusion Criteria:

* Current treatment for eating disorder
* not fluent in English, Dutch, or German

Primary outcomes:
measure: Meaning in life
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Tripartite domain of meaning in life: Comprehension
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Tripartite domain of meaning in life: Purpose
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Tripartite domain of meaning in life: Mattering
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Eating disorder symptoms
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Internalizing symptoms
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Depressive symptoms
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Anxiety symptoms
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
measure: Stress symptoms
timeFrame: Baseline (week 1), post-assessment (week 7), follow-up (week 11)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Groningen
country: Netherlands
facility: University of Groningen
Study officials:
References: