The ScreenED project is inviting families with a child between 5 – 12 years old to do an online survey about children’s eating habits and attend a short interview to provide feedback on the questions in the survey.
Participate in an eating disorder study
University of Technology Sydney has partnered with University of Melbourne on this ScreenED research project funded by the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to develop a screening tool for eating disorders, with project collaborator Associate Professor Deborah Mitchison Crawford representing UTS.
A team of esteemed Australian researchers and clinicians are collaborating with industry stakeholders, health professionals and families to develop this new screening tool that will be able to validly assess eating problems in primary school aged children.
The prevalence of eating disorders (EDs) in children is increasing. EDs such as anorexia, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder are associated with a wide range of chronic and devastating impacts on child development and are very distressing for family and community.
"A range of initiatives are implementing universal mental health screening to improve early intervention for children with mental illness; however, eating disorders are currently excluded from these because no validated, reliable screening instrument exists for use with children," project lead Dr Laura Hart said.
There is therefore an urgent need to develop an appropriate diagnostic tool to ensure children with EDs are being recognised and offered early and appropriate intervention.
About the project
The UTS partnership will take place across four states, with a Victorian team leading the research project. The team is a coalition of researchers and clinicians based at the University of Melbourne, Flinders University, University of Technology Sydney and Greater Western Sydney University.
“The age of children being referred to treatment for an eating disorder, including hospitalisation for weight restoration, is getting younger globally,” Deborah said.
“We need a screening tool to pick up problems early and nip them in the bud so that they do not go on to cause the impairments to mental, physical, social and educational/occupational wellbeing that we see all too often entrenched among older adolescents and adults,” she said.
The ScreenED tool aims to be a brief and straightforward questionnaire that could be used in research and clinical settings.
The team are aiming to develop a tool that:
- uses clear, non-stigmatising, age-appropriate, gender-neutral, culturally safe language
- assesses risk for a wide range of EDs
- taps early symptoms reported in research and by those with lived-experience or their parents
- is feasible for use alongside existing paediatric screening measures
- has easy scoring methods, clear cut points, and is freely available
- fosters future innovation in research and health services via wide dissemination into practice.
Questions in the survey are safe for all children, whether there are eating problems or not.
Get involved
ScreenED will be recruiting families with one child aged between 5 to 12 years, and at least one parent, for their study. They are seeking all kinds of families, including where a child has a known eating disorder and families with no risk of eating disorders at all, as well as families of all cultures, locations and structures.
Participation involves the parent and child completing an online survey and a short interview to provide feedback on the survey questions. The maximum time commitment is 30 minutes.
Your answers and feedback will help ScreenED pick the best questions to use in their screening tool.
Parents will receive a copy of their and their child’s responses to the questions.
Learn more about ScreenED’s project and register your interest to get involved.
Contact ScreenED
E: ScreenED-project@unimelb.edu.au
Ph: 03 8344 8863