Taking STRIDEs to Improve Access to Eating Disorders Services
Kelly Mowat1 1Eating Disorders Clinical Hub, Garran, ACT, Australia
Abstract
Aim:
We evaluated the impact of the Short-Term Recovery Intervention for Disordered Eating (STRIDE) Program, a student-led clinic, on wait times and its acceptability to students and clients.
Background:
STRIDE is a new service under ACT’s Eating Disorders Clinical Hub. It treats people living with mild to moderate eating disorders and was developed in response to long treatment wait times. In December 2021, adults waited up to 644 days to commence treatment with the Eating Disorders Program (EDP), which historically was ACT’s only public eating disorder service. Delayed access to eating disorder treatment is associated with lower remission rates, higher levels of treatment dropout and increased burden on the health system.
Methods
STRIDE offers a ten-session cognitive behavioural therapy treatment (CBT-T) for clients living with mild to moderate eating disorders and was established without increases in resources or funding. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation was completed.
Results
STRIDE contributed to an 88% reduction in service-wide wait times, despite an increase in referrals. The CBT-T delivered by STRIDE achieved statistically significant improvements in clients’ EDE-Q and DASS-21 scores. STRIDE received positive feedback from students and clients and has contributed to expanding ACT’s skilled workforce for eating disorders, improving client access.
Conclusions
This presentation will discuss the implementation and evaluation of a student-led clinic and lessons learnt in the process; including how STRIDE operates to increase service capacity without additional funding or resourcing, the impact it has had on clients, students and the wider health system and future directions for the program.
Biography
Kelly Mowat is the dietitian and one of the service coordinators for the Eating Disorders Clinical Hub. Since taking on the dietetics role within the Hub, Kelly has been a strong advocate for dietitians in mental health, initiating a student dietitian placement program and providing mentoring to provisional dietitians.