NCT06462300

Meaning-centered Intervention for Young Women With Weight and Shape Concerns

Searching for Meaning: A Study Examining the Effect of a Meaning-centered Intervention

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 166 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Groningen · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 16 Years – 35 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

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.

Conditions

• Eating Disorder Symptom

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	A meaning-centered intervention for young women with weight and shape concerns	* adapted version of the manualized meaning-centered psychotherapy for cancer patients developed by van der Spek et al. (2017) * six weekly individual online sessions, each lasting one hour * sessions led by a certified trainer * four sources of meaning will be explored: personal life story, dealing with life's limitations, creating one's own life, and meaningful experiences * homework assignments designed to deepen participants' experience and reflection on meaning in their daily lives

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-10-20
• Primary completion: 2024-02-06
• Completion: 2024-02-06
• First posted: 2024-06-17
• Last updated: 2024-06-17

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Netherlands