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Designing Digital Interventions for Eating Disorders

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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Digital (i.e., online, mobile) interventions have potential to increase access to care for people with eating disorders, but engagement with digital interventions has been challenging. Human-centered design is a methodology that centralizes the design of technologies on the people who will be using them and the settings in which they will be implemented, to yield solutions with high engagement and clinical impact. The paper presents an overview of the human-centered design process, followed by a review of publications that have applied design methods to digital interventions for eating disorders.

Recent Findings

Design research has been conducted via needs assessments, prototyping and usability studies, and during ongoing delivery of digital eating disorder interventions.

Summary

There has been growing research applying design methods to digital interventions for eating disorders. Additional opportunities include designing for implementation, designing for equity, and designing for the optimization of digital interventions over time.

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Data Availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed.

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (K01 DK116925).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 750 N. Lake Shore Drive, 10 Floor, Chicago, IL, USA

    Andrea K. Graham, Jacqueline A. Kosmas & Thomas A. Massion

  2. Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 750 N. Lake Shore Drive, 10 Floor, Chicago, IL, USA

    Andrea K. Graham & Jacqueline A. Kosmas

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA

    Thomas A. Massion

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  1. Andrea K. Graham
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Correspondence to Andrea K. Graham.

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Conflict of Interest

AKG reports grants from the NIDDK during the conduct of the study, as well as personal fees from Alavida Health and Actualize Therapy and grants from the NIMH outside the submitted work. TAM reports personal fees from Adaptive-Health outside the submitted work. JAK has nothing to disclose.

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Graham, A.K., Kosmas, J.A. & Massion, T.A. Designing Digital Interventions for Eating Disorders. Curr Psychiatry Rep 25, 125–138 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-023-01415-x

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