As of 04/08/24, this study is closed.

Background:

You are invited to take part in this research investigating the role of cognitive flexibility, perfectionism and rumination in eating disorders and disordered eating behaviours.

Please note that we are recruiting both individuals with a lived current or lifetime eating disorder and controls without an eating disorder diagnosis.

What are the possible benefits?
Difficulties with thinking flexibly have been noted in eating disorders, however, few studies have considered flexible thinking in patients who have partially or fully recovered from anorexia nervosa. Furthermore, there is limited research that has linked cognitive flexibility with other cognitive factors (e.g. perfectionism) in eating disorders.

This project aims to clarify the role of various cognitive factors in eating disorders. This research will investigate the role of cognitive flexibility and related processes (e.g. rumination, perfectionism, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and self-efficacy) in the maintenance of disordered eating symptoms. The improved understanding of eating disorders and cognitive factors developed through this research may aid in the development of effective treatments for eating disorders

Upon completion of the study, you will be entered into a voucher draw to win 1 of 5 $50 e-gift cards. This will be organised by one of the researchers.

Requirements for participation:
· Over the age of 18
· Fluent in English
· No history of a head injury, have no known neurological disorder and have not been diagnosed with a psychotic condition.
· We are seeking people with and without a lifetime diagnosis of anorexia nervosa to take part.
· You must be able to download a small file to your computer or smartphone in order to complete the study.

What’s expected of participants:
If you agree to participate, you will be asked to complete several self-report measures, followed by two short, simple neuropsychological tasks. These tasks will involve you matching cards and using the cursor to draw a line between letters and numbers

To complete the tasks, you will be required to download a small file onto your computer or smart phone. This file can be deleted after you have completed the study. You will not be required to install any program or software.

The study will take less than one hour to complete.

Format: Online survey and computer-based neuropsychological task.

Confidentiality: The data will be stored on a UoM OneDrive server and an UoM owned Qualtrics account which are all password protected and all data will be de- identified. Only members of the research team will have access to participant’s raw data.

Ethics: This study has received ethics approval from the University of Melbourne.

Contact info for researchers and supervisors: 

Honours Student: Jessica Taffe jtaffe@student.unimelb.edu.au

Supervisor: Isabel Krug isabel.krug@unimelb.edu.au

Co-supervisor: Stephanie Miles stephanie.miles@orygen.org.au