Optimizing a Smartphone Application for Individuals With Eating Disorders

This study will augment an existing mobile application for individuals with eating disorders by developing adaptive, tailored content targeting remediation of cognitive distortions. The adaptive application will be deployed and assessed for efficacy relative to the standard product in a randomized controlled trial.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Bulimia Nervosa; Eating Disorders; Binge Eating Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Recovery Record adaptive smartphone application; Behavioral: Recovery Record standard smartphone application

Detailed Description

Eating Disorders (ED) are common and serious psychological disorders. Anorexia Nervosa (AN) has a prevalence estimated at between 0.48% and 0.70% among young females. Bulimia Nervosa (BN) is a serious mental health problem, with a prevalence of between 1-2% of young women while clinically significant bulimic behaviors occur in an additional 2-3%. There are significant barriers to access of evidence-based treatments and current models of individual psychotherapy will likely never meet the enormous need for psychological services for ED. Unfortunately, even with treatment, rates of recovery are modest with the best performing treatments achieving remission in only about 50% of cases while relapse rates are high, especially if the ED becomes chronic. It is widely acknowledged that a major shift in intervention practice is needed and that smartphone apps will almost certainly play a role due to their reach and breadth of functionality.

As the first commercially available smartphone app for EDs, Recovery Record (RR) has established wide reach and user acceptability. The app provides users with meal and ED symptom self-monitoring and coping skill strategies in an evidence-based CBT format. Preliminary pilot data suggest that for a proportion of RR users, using RR is associated with clinically significant symptom reduction. However, a limitation of the current app is that it is a "one-size-fits-all" product that does not account for the heterogeneity of ED symptoms. Genetic, personality and neurocognitive data support distinct clusters of ED presentations that also differ according to response to treatment, course and outcome. Pilot data confirm that clinical response to RR is not homogenous across groups and that extent of cognitive distortions is the most potent factor to predict outcome. There is considerable opportunity to increase RR's effectiveness across a range of ED symptoms and behaviors by creating adaptive and tailored content focused on remediation of cognitive distortions.

During Phase 1 of this study screening algorithm will be validated against an unseen, prospective test dataset of approximately 2,000 users. All candidate predictor variables will be entered into a Signal Detection Analysis to confirm the sensitivity and specificity of the screen. Informed by the resultant algorithms, adaptive content will be developed that targets ED-specific cognitive distortions. To evaluate acceptability, adapted content will be piloted with approximately 200 individuals for a period of one month. Participant feedback and utilization data will inform content acceptability and feasibility. By the end of the first phase tailored content that is acceptable to individuals with specific symptom presentations will be developed.

Phase 2 will focus on an evaluation of whether an adaptive app offering tailored content addressing eating related cognitive distortions in a stepped way can outperform the current standard app. The adaptive content will be integrated into a new, dynamic version of the app (RR-A) that will then be evaluated against the current app (RR-S). Approximately 5,000 registered users of RR will be randomized to receive either RR augmented with targeted content (RR-A), or RR in its current standard format (RR-S) over a two-month period. Outcome data will be measured at baseline, one month, end of treatment, and at six-month follow-up. At the end of the study period it is predicted that the resultant evidence-based product will have demonstrated ability to bring about clinically significant reduction in symptoms in more users than the current app, and thus will have potential to make a substantial public health impact.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 3340
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • San Francisco, California, United States, 94107
      • Recovery Record Research
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94304
      • Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 16 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Meets criteria for clinically significant symptoms of eating disorder using self-report measures
• Has an Android or iPhone and is willing to use phone for the study
• Is able to speak and read English
• Lives within the United States of America
• Is at least 16 years of age

Exclusion Criteria:

• Has visual, hearing, voice, or motor impairment that would prevent completion of study and treatment procedures
• Has any psychiatric condition for which participation in a clinical trial of psychotherapy may be either inappropriate or dangerous (e.g., psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders, severe post traumatic stress disorder, etc.).
• Exhibits severe suicidality, including ideation, plan, and intent.
• Currently receiving weekly psychotherapy or planning to receive weekly psychotherapy for eating disorder during the 12 weeks of the study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Recovery Record adaptive smartphone application (RR-A); Participants will have access to all Recovery Record standard functions and will additionally receive tailored, algorithm-generated content targeting cognitive distortions.	Behavioral: Recovery Record adaptive smartphone application
Active Comparator: Recovery Record standard smartphone application (RR-S); Participants will have access to all Recovery Record standard functions, including meal monitoring, motivational enhancement, social support, and coping skill strategies.	Behavioral: Recovery Record standard smartphone application

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Changes in Eating Disorder Severity	Self-reported eating disorder symptom severity. To measure changes in eating disorder severity over time, the Eating Disorder Evaluation Questionnaire (EDE-Q) will be used.	Measured at the start of treatment (baseline), week 4, week 8 and 6 months follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Binge eating and purging episode frequency	Self-reported disordered behavior frequency will be assessed via behaviors self-monitored in the application in addition to symptom frequency questions in the Eating Disorder Evaluation Questionnaire.	Measured at the start of treatment (baseline), week 4, week 8 and 6 months follow-up
Changes in Clinical Impairment Severity	To measure changes in eating disorder related clinical impairment over time, the self-reported Clinical Impairment Assessment (CIA) will be used.	Measured at the start of treatment (baseline), week 4, week 8 and 6 months follow-up
Participant Satisfaction	Self-reported satisfaction	Participants will be followed for the duration of the 8-week trial
Adherence to the mobile application intervention	Adherence will be measured via dichotomous outcome of drop-out (an individual will be considered a system drop-out if they fail to login to the app at all for a period of 14 consecutive days). Adherence will be assessed through application usage data.	Measured from the start of application utilization (baseline) to 8-weeks
Adherence to self-monitoring tasks	Frequency of self-monitoring entries will be tracked automatically through the program server.	Measured from the start of application utilization (baseline) to 8-weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Recovery Record Research
• Collaborators: Stanford University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Tregarthen J, Paik Kim J, Sadeh-Sharvit S, Neri E, Welch H, Lock J. Comparing a Tailored Self-Help Mobile App With a Standard Self-Monitoring App for the Treatment of Eating Disorder Symptoms: Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Ment Health. 2019 Nov 21;6(11):e14972. doi: 10.2196/14972.

Helpful Links

• Recovery Record smartphone application website

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 23, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 13, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): September 13, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 15, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 16, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): July 20, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 6, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 5, 2020
• Last Verified: October 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: App; Smartphone; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Bulimia Nervosa; Mobile Phone; Eating Disorders; Binge Eating Disorder; Signal Detection Analysis
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Pathologic Processes; Signs and Symptoms, Digestive; Hyperphagia; Disease; Bulimia; Feeding and Eating Disorders; Binge-Eating Disorder; Bulimia Nervosa
• Other Study ID Numbers: RRR-023