King's College London

The aim of this study is to develop and test a smartphone-friendly, online intervention for young people, who have recently developed an eating disorder (ED), called FREED-M (First Episode Rapid Early Intervention for EDs–Mobile).

This intervention aims to increase young people’s understanding of their illness and to raise their motivation to seek treatment. It will do this by giving them information about EDs, personalised feedback on their symptoms, and practical steps on how to seek help.

Before we conduct a large evaluation, we will first conduct a feasibility study to explore how young people find this new intervention, and to gather the data we would need to carry out the larger evaluation.

We will randomly allocate young people to either receive our new intervention (FREED-M), or to be directed to existing online resources for people with EDs. We will recruit 116 young people, aged 16-25, with a first episode of an ED to take part in this study by advertising the study in GP practices, schools and universities across England.

We will assess how long it takes young people to seek and receive help. We will also collect information about participants’ ED symptoms, mood, social life and motivation to change three times over 12 weeks. Our main outcome for this study will be the percentage of young people who complete the study (i.e., do the final assessments).

Qualitative interviews will explore initial expectations of the intervention, perceived strengths and weaknesses, and suggestions for improvements. Stakeholder interviews (with GPs, school and university staff and parents/carers) will broadly follow the RE-AIM framework, and will focus on optimising reach, adoption, implementation and maintenance in these different settings.

This study is funded by NIHR Research for Public Benefit.