Developing a stage of change measure for assessing recovery from anorexia nervosa

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding of the self-change process in recovery from anorexia nervosa (AN). This included the development of a measure for assessing readiness to change behaviors and/or cognitions associated with recovery from AN across five stages of change, based on the transtheoretical model of behavior change. Two-hundred and seventy-eight anorexics, predominantly female, completed questionnaires that measured all constructs of the TTM, as well as the EAT-26, demographic items, and other self-reported recovery measures. Based on a quantitative and qualitative comparison of five staging definitions in this relatively large sample of anorexics, it was concluded that the most meaningful staging measure was one that measured progress through the stages by readiness to stop restricting/bingeing/purging behaviors. The development of an algorithm to measure stages of change for recovery from AN has the potential to accelerate clinical research and to augment available treatments in this area.