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"We don't really know what else we can do": Parent experiences when adolescent distress persists after the Maudsley and family-based therapies for anorexia nervosa.

Author
Abstract
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Maudsley Family Therapy (MFT), and its manualised version, Family-Based Therapy (FBT), are the only well-established treatment interventions for adolescent anorexia nervosa (AN), with treatment efficacy primarily measured by improvements in eating behaviours and weight restoration. A crucial component of this therapy is an intensive home-based refeeding intervention that requires a substantial commitment from parents for up to one year. While this treatment works to restore weight in a proportion of adolescents, very little is known about its impacts on family distress, relationships and identity, including in the 40% of families where the adolescent experiences ongoing eating disorder (ED) symptomatology and/or psychological distress during and post-treatment. Specifically, few studies have investigated the impacts of MFT/FBT treatment on family functioning or on how parents negotiate their identities, or who they understand themselves to be, in the context of this treatment intervention. This is a significant omission, given the substantive role assigned to parents to take responsibility for their child's eating restoration in the first treatment phase. This study seeks to address this gap through a qualitative exploration of parents' experiences of MFT/FBT, in cases where treatment was discontinued and/or their child continued to experience psychological distress post-treatment.

Year of Publication
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0
Journal
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Journal of eating disorders
Volume
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7
Number of Pages
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5
Date Published
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2019
URL
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https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40337-019-0235-5
DOI
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10.1186/s40337-019-0235-5
Short Title
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J Eat Disord
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