Comparing guided self-help and self-help acceptance and commitment therapy skills-based internet intervention to manage food cravings: a pilot feasibility study

Background: Managing food cravings poses a substantial challenge when it comes to dietary control or transitioning to a healthier eating regimen. Furthermore, these cravings often lead to premature discontinuation of weight-loss programmes. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has emerged as an inspiring approach to managing food cravings. A novel direction was to evaluate an ACT based internet intervention for food cravings. Design/method: This mixed methods pilot study was designed to investigate the acceptability and effectiveness of a 3-week ACT based online intervention for food cravings. Thirty participants from the community were randomly assigned to either a) a self-help delivery method or b) a guided self-help method, where remote support was provided by the researcher. Psychological flexibility, emotional eating and food cravings were measured by validated questionnaires at pre, post and at 1 month follow-up, where participants partook in a semi-structured feedback interview. Results: Many of the participants found the internet intervention acceptable and had a positive experience. Analyses were run with baseline and post scores only, due to participant attrition at follow up. Significant differences between pre and post intervention were found for the following: an increase in psychological flexibility (F (1,28) = 26.67, p = .001, ƞ2 = 0.49); a decrease in both emotional eating (F (1,28) = 12.93, p = .001, ƞ2 = 0.32) and self-reported frequency of food cravings (F (1,28) = 8.045, p = .008, ƞ2 = 0.22). No significant effect was observed between the different delivery method (self-help versus guided self-help). Discussion/Conclusion: This study’s findings tentatively indicated that an ACT based internet intervention was effective for managing food cravings, regardless of delivery method. This pilot has the potential to inform the design a larger scale study to determine its longer-term effectiveness.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Professional Doctorate

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Pollard, Lorraine

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Nicholls, Wendy
• Lloyd, Joanne

• acceptance and commitment therapy
• food cravings
• Internet use
• pilot
• intervention
• guided self-help
• self-help

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence

• https://wlv.dspace7.openrepository.com/bitstreams/eb518fcf-0a2f-448b-bec1-f9c3e720342b/download