NCT02694731

A Mindfulness Mobile Intervention Targeting Reductions in Food Cravings

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 104 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Participants will complete a 5-week smartphone app-based intervention that teaches mindful eating skills. One goal is to determine to what extent participants will enjoy using the app and complete the intervention. The investigators predict that after completing the intervention, participants will report fewer episodes of eating in response to food cravings. The investigators will also measure several other biological and behavioral outcomes.

Detailed description

In this prospective repeated-measures cohort study, participants will complete a 5-week smartphone app-based intervention that teaches mindful eating skills. The investigators will assess psychological and behavioral intervention targets using questionnaires and brief mobile assessments. The investigators will also measure BMI and adiposity. Assessments will occur at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 1 and 2 months post intervention. At several times during the study, participants will also receive multiple daily text messages asking them to complete a brief food craving assessment on their phone. This "experience sampling" approach is critical as it allow the investigators to capture experiences and behaviors that are often brief and automatic, making them poorly suited to traditional retrospective questionnaires. The investigators will also assess acceptability and continued use of the app via anonymous usage logs. Overall, the aims are to 1) assess feasibility of the protocol, 2) assess changes in food cravings and indulgence of cravings, and 3) determine the extent to which participants remain engaged with the app after completing the 5-week intervention period and whether this predicts maintenance of benefits at 1 month and 2 months post-intervention. An exploratory aim is to measure the effects of the intervention on body weight, bodyfat, and bodyfat distribution.

Conditions

• Food Cravings

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Mobile application intervention (Device: Smartphone)	Consists of the app described in the arm description.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-02-01
• Primary completion: 2016-11-29
• Completion: 2016-11-30
• First posted: 2016-02-29
• Last updated: 2017-05-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States