(PS8-A7) Eating Pathology Improves with a Brief Self-compassion Intervention

Eating disorders are serious psychiatric conditions that negatively impact physical and psychological health (Hudson et al., 2007; O’Brien et al., 2017). Only about 50% of patients improve with current eating disorder treatments, making it important to develop and test alternatives to existing interventions (Carter et al., 2012; Kass et al., 2014; Keel et al., 2005). One such alternative that may be promising for reducing eating disorder symptoms is a self-compassion intervention. Self-compassion is a multifaceted concept that reflects a way of treating oneself during painful and difficult situations (Neff, 2003). Recent research has established a temporal association between self-compassion and eating pathology, such that periods of lower self-compassion predicted greater eating disorder symptom severity in a sample of eating disorder patients (Kelly & Tasca, 2016). These findings suggest that increasing self-compassion may improve eating pathology. Indeed, self-compassion is a skill that can be enhanced through targeted interventions, and research has shown these interventions to be effective in improving symptoms of depression and anxiety, which are highly co-morbid with eating pathology (Ferrari et al., 2019; Puccio et al., 2016; Swinborne et al., 2012; Wilson et al., 2019). However, to our knowledge, few studies have examined the usefulness of a brief, accessible self-compassion intervention on reducing eating disorder symptoms. The current study was an open trial to examine the initial utility of an online self-compassion intervention on eating pathology in undergraduate students (N = 132). Participants watched an educational video on self-compassion and completed four brief self-compassion writing tasks (Neff, 2003). Self-reported self-compassion scores significantly increased from baseline to one week post-intervention (t[85] = -3.1, p = .003). Eating pathology significantly decreased from baseline to post-intervention (t[87] = 2.99, p = .004). Although limited in the conclusions that can be drawn, this study provides critical preliminary evidence that this brief self-compassion intervention may be a promising intervention target for eating pathology and is worthy of investigating in a future randomized controlled trial. Moreover, the online nature of this intervention may be important for increasing access to care.