An interventional study of Safety Behavior Fading for Appearance Concerns and Progressive Muscle Relaxation in Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Eating Disorders and Social Anxiety Disorder, sponsored by Florida State University. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 65 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-09-30.
Sponsored by Florida State University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
The current study aims to explore the efficacy of a text message based safety behavior fading intervention compared to a progressive muscle relaxation intervention for appearance concerns.
Appearance-related safety behavior fading intervention procedures will follow methodology previously used in the Cougle Lab. The safety behavior fading intervention is designed to target a decrease or elimination of appearance-related safety behaviors. Individuals randomly assigned to the safety behavior fading condition will receive instructions to decrease or eliminate their endorsed appearance-related safety behaviors. In addition, they will receive daily reminders via text message to decrease these behaviors, along with a safety behavior monitoring checklist in which the participant indicates the extent to which they decreased and/or eliminated each safety behavior over the previous day. The daily reminder will include the following language: "Hi! This is a friendly reminder to avoid using your checklist behaviors. Please tap the link below to access today's checklist: [link to checklist]." Text messages will be delivered using EZtexting a text messaging platform used for research and marketing. Note that no identifying information will be included in this platform. Each participants phone number will be accompanied with a anonymized ID code. Individuals randomly assigned to the progressive muscle relaxation condition will be instructed to try and practice it daily for the 28 days. They will also receive daily text messages to remind them to practice relaxation and they can log which of the 10 different muscle groups they tensed and released in the past day.
56 studies on the registry are indexed under Body Dysmorphic Disorders; 11 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 300 is above the median of 52 across 44 interventional studies indexed under Body Dysmorphic Disorders.
Browse Body Dysmorphic Disorders studies →Florida State University is the lead sponsor of 249 studies on the registry; 47 are open to participants now.
Of its 16 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 9 (56%) have results posted.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Individuals randomly assigned to the safety behavior fading condition will receive instructions to decrease or eliminate their endorsed appearance-related safety behaviors. In addition, they will receive daily reminders via text message to decrease these behaviors, along with a safety behavior monitoring checklist in which the participant indicates the extent to which they engaged in each safety behavior over the previous day.
Behavioral: Safety Behavior Fading for Appearance Concerns
Participants in this condition will be instructed to try and practice progressive muscle relaxation daily for 28 days. To match safety behavior fading they will also receive daily text messages to remind them to practice relaxation and they can log which of the 10 different muscle groups they tensed and released in the past day.
Behavioral: Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Participants are asked to reduce or eliminate safety behaviors via text message reminders and checklists to monitor progress.
Also known as: ARSB Fading
Participants are asked to practice relaxation daily via text message reminder and checklists to monitor progress.
The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS)
Self-report scale that measures appearance anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 16 to 80 with higher scores indicating higher levels of appearance concerns.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Appearance Behaviors Checklist past-week version (author constructed)
Self-report scale used to measure frequency of engaging in appearance-related safety behaviors. This scale will be used as a manipulation check. Each item is rated on a 0 to 10 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 130 with higher scores indicating greater engagement in appearance-related safety behaviors
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Appearance Anxiety Inventory (AAI; Veale et al., 2014)
Self-report scale that measures of body dysmorphic symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 40 with higher scores indicating higher levels of body dysmorphic symptoms.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN; Connor et al., 2000)
Self-report scale that measures social anxiety symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 68 with higher scores indicating higher levels of social anxiety.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Eating Disorder-15 (ED-15; Tatham et al., 2015).
Self-report scale that measures eating disorder symptoms. Scores range from 0 to 90 with higher scores indicating higher levels of eating pathology.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
The Eating Disorder Inventory-Body Dissatisfaction (EDI; Garner et al., 1983).
Self-report scale for measuring body dissatisfaction for use in clinical outcome studies. Each item is rated on a 0-5 scale with a total score range of 9-54 with higher scores indicating greater drive for thinness, bulimia, and body dissatisfaction.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Credibility and Expectancy Questionnaire (CEQ; Devilly & Borkovec, 2000).
Self-report scale for measuring treatment expectancy and rationale credibility for use in clinical outcome studies. Three items are rated on a 0-10 scale and one item is rated on a 0-100 scale with higher scores meaning greater expectancy and credibility.
Time frame: Day 0
Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-10 (CESD; Andreson, 1994)
Self-report measure of depression symptom severity. Each item is rated on a 0 to 3 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 30 with higher scores indicating greater depression severity.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006)
Self-report measure of anxiety symptom severity. Each item is rated on a 0 to 3 scale. Total scores range from 0 to 28 with higher scores indicating greater anxiety severity.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Appearance Preference Task
Computerized forced-choice task measuring appearance importance relative to other favorable characteristics. The APT randomly presents a series of 33 word pairs and asks the participant to select the concept that is more important to them. Each pair consists of a positive appearance-related adjective and a positive character trait unrelated to appearance (e.g., beautiful-responsible). Higher scores indicate greater endorsement of appearance words.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Social Interaction Scale (Author Constructed)
Single-item self-report scale that the extent to which individuals engage with their social support networks. This question asks: "what percentage of your time awake did you spend interacting with others this past week (0% =No time at all, 100% =all of the time)?"
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptom Scale-Cognitive Subscale (Wilhelm et al., 2016)
Self-report scale that measures cognitions related to body dysmorphic disorder. Scores range from 0 to 190 with higher scores indicating higher levels of maladaptive cognitions related to body dysmorphic disorder.
Time frame: Day 0, Day 28, Day 56
Plan to share: No
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
Started May 2026 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Dec 2026, 7 months after the start.
Of 26 interventional studies with no phase under Body Dysmorphic Disorders, half reached primary completion within 21 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 34. This study's planned 7 months is below that.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Sep 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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