Examining the Characteristics of Adolescents Recruited to a Novel Digital Treatment for Eating Disorders: Baseline Assessment in an Open Feasibility Trial.

Background: Digital interventions for eating disorders have the potential to increase access to care and broaden the range of treatment options for adolescents. However, little is known about the characteristics of those who seek these interventions. Identifying such characteristics will help ensure that these interventions meet the needs of the target population, highlight potentially underrepresented groups, and support clinicians in assessing clinical suitability for individual patients. Objective: This study aimed to examine the characteristics of adolescents seeking digital treatment for eating disorders within routine clinical care and to explore whether the key components of the novel digital treatment align with the characteristics of the adolescents it is designed to support. Methods: This study used baseline data from an open feasibility trial of a novel digital treatment for eating disorders within routine clinical care. Participants were adolescents aged 15 to 18 years with a diagnosis of atypical anorexia nervosa, atypical bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, or eating disorder, unspecified. Baseline assessment included demographic characteristics, eating disorder symptomatology, psychosocial impairment, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, depression, negative self-evaluation, and motivational factors. Results: A total of 25 adolescents participated in the study, all of whom were women. The mean age was 16 (SD 0.87) years. Half of the adolescents had previously received face-to-face treatment for an eating disorder. The sample was transdiagnostic with some variation in distribution. The adolescents reported severe eating disorder symptoms, marked psychosocial impairment, emotional difficulties, elevated negative self-evaluation, and high levels of internal pretreatment motivation. Conclusions: The findings from this study underscore the relevance of digital interventions to complement or extend traditional eating disorder care for adolescents. This study emphasizes the importance of designing digital treatments that are sensitive to normative biases, address the multifaceted nature of eating disorders, and are tailored to the needs and preferences of a transdiagnostic population. The present findings are important insofar as they may inform whether the key treatment components align with the characteristics of adolescents seeking digital treatment for eating disorders within routine clinical care.