{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,1]],"date-time":"2026-05-01T13:04:21Z","timestamp":1777640661059,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,17]],"date-time":"2025-01-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1737072000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Digit. Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>Only a minority of people with eating disorders receive evidence-based psychological treatment. This is especially true for those with recurrent binge eating because the shame that accompanies binge eating affects help seeking and there is a shortage of therapists to provide psychological treatments. Digital programme-led interventions have the potential to overcome both barriers.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study examined the acceptability and effectiveness of a new digital programme-led intervention directly based on enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT-E), which is an empirically supported psychological treatment for eating disorders.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>One hundred and ten adults with recurrent binge eating (self-reporting characteristics consistent with binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and similar conditions) were recruited through an advertisement on the website of the UK's national eating disorder charity, <jats:italic>Beat<\/jats:italic>. The intervention, called <jats:italic>Digital CBTe<\/jats:italic>, comprised 12 sessions over 8\u201312 weeks delivered autonomously (i.e., without external support). Participants completed self-report outcome measures of eating disorder features and secondary impairment at baseline, post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Most participants identified as female, White, and were living in the United Kingdom. Most participants (85%) self-reported features that resembled binge eating disorder, and the rest self-reported features that resembled bulimia nervosa (8%) and atypical bulimia nervosa (7%). On average, participants reported that the onset of their eating disorder was more than twenty years ago. Sixty-three percent of the participants completed <jats:italic>Digital CBTe<\/jats:italic> (i.e., completed active treatment sessions). Those who completed all sessions and the post-intervention assessment (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\u2009=\u200955, 50%) reported significant decreases in binge eating, eating disorder psychopathology, and secondary impairment at post-intervention. These improvements were maintained at follow-up. Large effect sizes were observed for all these outcomes using a completer analysis and post-intervention data (<jats:italic>d<\/jats:italic>\u2009=\u20090.91\u20131.43). Significant improvements were also observed for all outcomes at post-intervention in the intent-to-treat analysis, with medium-to-large effect sizes.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>A substantial proportion of those who completed <jats:italic>Digital CBTe<\/jats:italic> and the post-intervention assessment experienced marked improvements. This provides promising data to support the conduct of a fully powered trial to test the clinical and cost-effectiveness of autonomous <jats:italic>Digital CBTe<\/jats:italic>.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fdgth.2024.1499350","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,17]],"date-time":"2025-01-17T06:53:29Z","timestamp":1737096809000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Breaking the cycle: a pilot study on autonomous Digital CBTe for recurrent binge eating"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"6","author":[{"given":"Rebecca","family":"Murphy","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Charandeep","family":"Khera","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Emma 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