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Preparing for Eating Disorders Treatment Through Compassionate Letter-Writing

NCT04174703 · Status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 160

Last updated 2026-01-28

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) seeks to lower shame and help people develop compassion for personal distress and shortcomings. There is increasing evidence to support the benefits of incorporating CFT-based interventions into the treatment of eating disorders (EDs). Building on the investigators' prior research, this study will examine the effects of a two-week CFT-based self-compassion letter-writing intervention on patients with eating disorders. Participants will be recruited from the wait-list of patients scheduled to begin treatment at the outpatient St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton Eating Disorders Program, and will be randomly assigned to the two-week letter-writing intervention or to a control group. Results will inform the integration of new empirically-derived interventions into ED treatments to improve the currently dismal rates of ED recovery.

Conditions

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

Interventions

OTHER

Self-compassionate letter-writing intervention

Participants in this condition will be asked to engage in an online self-compassionate letter-writing task once per day (10-20 minutes each) for 2 weeks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of Waterloo

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Allison Kelly, PhD · University of Waterloo

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
17 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2020-09-29
Primary Completion
2026-12-31
Completion
2026-12-31

Countries

  • Canada

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04174703 on ClinicalTrials.gov