NCT03317379

Evaluation of the Communities of Healing Mentorship/Support Group Program: Assessment of Preliminary Efficacy

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (actual)
• Sponsor: New York State Psychiatric Institute · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 14 Years – 45 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of the study is to evaluate two 6-month adjunct interventions (peer mentorship and social support mentorship) for individuals with eating disorders. Individuals will be randomized to peer-mentorship, social support mentorship, or a wait-list and eating disorder symptoms will be evaluated at baseline and post-treatment.

Detailed description

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses associated with significant morbidity and high relapse rates. Patients are at especially high risk of relapse after leaving structured treatment (e.g., hospitalization). Adjunct interventions targeting patients' motivation and participation in treatment at these times may help patients recover from eating disorders. Project HEAL is a non-profit organization whose mission is to reduce suffering caused by eating disorders, and they have recently developed two adjunct, mentorship-based interventions for patients in recovery. In the peer mentorship condition, individuals meet weekly with a peer mentor who has previously recovered from an eating disorder in order to discuss symptoms and coping strategies. In the social support mentorship condition, individuals meet weekly with a social support mentor who has not personally struggled with an eating disorder in order to engage in activities unrelated to the eating disorder. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of this intervention. The design of the study is a three-arm randomized controlled trial comparing peer mentorship, social-support mentorship, and wait-list control conditions. Participants in the study will be randomized to one of the three conditions for six months. Wait-list participants will subsequently receive either type of mentorship. Participants will complete assessments of their eating disorder symptoms at baseline, monthly throughout the course of the study, and one year after beginning the study. Outcomes will be compared between groups.

Conditions

• Eating Disorder
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa
• Binge-Eating Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Peer mentorship	Weekly meetings with a recovered peer mentor once per week. Dyads discuss eating disorder symptoms and how to overcome them.
BEHAVIORAL	Social support mentorship	Weekly meetings with a social support mentor who has not personally struggled with an eating disorder, once per week. Dyads engage in activities unrelated to the eating disorder (e.g., a movie, a community event, volunteer work).
BEHAVIORAL	Recovery Record use with mentor	Recovery Record is a smart phone or web-based application designed to provide recovery support to eating disorder patients. Includes a number of features aimed to promote recovery, such as a meal tracking, prompts for completing meals/snacks, tracking for additional symptoms such as stress and mood, motivational messages, information about coping strategies, and capacity to share logged data with clinicians and mentors.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-10-01
• Primary completion: 2021-05-31
• Completion: 2021-06-30
• First posted: 2017-10-23
• Last updated: 2021-08-19
• Results posted: 2021-08-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States