Safety Behavior Fading Versus Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Appearance Concerns

Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18-65
SponsorFlorida State University

About this trial

The current study aims to explore the efficacy of a text message based safety behavior fading intervention compared to a progressive muscle relaxation intervention for appearance concerns.

Eligibility criteria

This trial does not accept healthy volunteers

Qualifiers

being between the ages of 18 and 65 years old

having an internet-capable smart-phone

scoring at or above the empirical cutoff for appearance concerns measured by the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (i.e., 52)

Disqualifiers

changes in psychotropic medication in the last 4 weeks

failing attention checks in baseline data collection

Trial design

Design model

Parallel

Treatments tested in this trial

  • Safety Behavior Fading for Appearance Concerns

    Behavioral

    Participants are asked to reduce or eliminate safety behaviors via text message reminders and checklists to monitor progress.

  • Progressive Muscle Relaxation

    Behavioral

    Participants are asked to practice relaxation daily via text message reminder and checklists to monitor progress.

Treatment groups

300 Participants
are divided into 2 treatment groups
Group A: Safety Behavior FadingExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Group B: Progressive Muscle RelaxationActive comparator 1 intervention

Trial outcomes

Primary outcomes

1

The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS)

Self-report scale that measures appearance anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 16 to 80 with higher scores indicating higher levels of appearance concerns.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
2

Appearance Behaviors Checklist past-week version (author constructed)

Self-report scale used to measure frequency of engaging in appearance-related safety behaviors. This scale will be used as a manipulation check. Each item is rated on a 0 to 10 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 130 with higher scores indicating greater engagement in appearance-related safety behaviors

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
3

Appearance Anxiety Inventory (AAI; Veale et al., 2014)

Self-report scale that measures of body dysmorphic symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 40 with higher scores indicating higher levels of body dysmorphic symptoms.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
4

Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN; Connor et al., 2000)

Self-report scale that measures social anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 68 with higher scores indicating higher levels of social anxiety.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56

Secondary outcomes

1

Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-10 (CESD; Andreson, 1994)

Self-report measure of depression symptom severity. Each item is rated on a 0 to 3 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 30 with higher scores indicating greater depression severity.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
2

Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006)

Self-report measure of anxiety symptom severity. Each item is rated on a 0 to 3 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 28 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety severity.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
3

Appearance Preference Task

Computerized forced-choice task measuring appearance importance relative to other favorable characteristics. The APT randomly presents a series of 33 word pairs and asks the participant to select the concept that is more important to them. Each pair consists of a positive appearance-related adjective and a positive character trait unrelated to appearance (e.g., beautiful-responsible). Higher scores indicate greater endorsement of appearance words.

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
4

Social Interaction Scale (Author Constructed)

Single-item self-report scale that the extent to which individuals engage with their social support networks. This question asks: "what percentage of your time awake did you spend interacting with others this past week (0% =No time at all, 100% =all of the time)?"

Time frame
Day 0, Day 28, Day 56

Other outcomes

Sponsors and contacts

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