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Enhancing recovery from eating and weight disorders using mHealth and psychological theory

Descrizione del progetto

Un’applicazione smartphone per i disturbi alimentari

I disturbi alimentari colpiscono circa 20 milioni di persone nell’UE. Spesso correlati a comportamenti problematici, tra cui inedia autoinflitta, bulimia e purgazione, il loro trattamento solitamente comprende una combinazione di psicoterapia e di educazione alimentare. In tale contesto, il progetto SmartEater, finanziato dall’UE, sta sviluppando un’applicazione per fornire una registrazione mobile intelligente di stati psicologici ed emotivi, oltre ai comportamenti alimentari, come base per interventi di supporto verso persone affette da bulimia nervosa o da disturbo da alimentazione incontrollata. Per garantire un’elevata adesione dell’utente, l’applicazione chiede agli utenti di inserire ripetutamente i dati circa la voglia di alimenti, lo stress e altre informazioni. Applicando algoritmi di apprendimento automatico, l’applicazione «impara» dall’utente e prevede comportamenti alimentari futuri potenzialmente problematici per un intervento tempestivo.

Obiettivo

Smartphones are ubiquitous in all age groups and socioeconomic levels and digitalization of various life domains is in full
progress. While there are several areas where skepticism is justified, the personal health domain still holds high promises, particularly when applied in specific settings. The proposed mHealth app SmartEater provides intelligent mobile logging of stress, and eating
behavior as a basis for intervention and follow-up care in clinics treating eating disorders and obesity. Current apps require frequent and cumbersome entries, resulting in low user adherence and poor data quality. Evidence for their usefulness is often missing. Further, therapeutic content is not personalized. In SmartEater, users repeatedly enter data on experienced craving for foods and stress. SmartEater then ‘learns’ from the user through sophisticated machine learning algorithms: data from smartphone usage
patterns (e.g. screen-on time, calls, messages, internet traffic) and sensor data (e.g. movement, background noise) are
combined to substitute for manual user input, thereby progressively reducing user burden. Temporal pattern analysis of
individual time-series allows prediction of stress and craving bouts into the near future. Such predictions allows the app to respond
to upcoming eating 'crises’ e.g. overeating/binge eating and launch situation-appropriate tips that have been developed individually for the user during in-patient treatment. SmartEater will be routed in psychological models of eating behavior and rigorously tested in the described population to evaluate efficacy. Due to the sensitive nature of such data, SmartEater enforces strict privacy protection. Targeted markets include health insurances which profit from improved patient health and successful transfer into daily life after professional treatment as well as clinics with an eating/weight disorder focus in German speaking coutries.

Meccanismo di finanziamento

ERC-POC - Proof of Concept Grant

Istituzione ospitante

PARIS-LODRON-UNIVERSITAT SALZBURG
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 61 250,00
Indirizzo
KAPITELGASSE 4-6
5020 Salzburg
Austria

Mostra sulla mappa

Regione
Westösterreich Salzburg Salzburg und Umgebung
Tipo di attività
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Collegamenti
Costo totale
€ 61 250,00

Beneficiari (2)