Parental perceptions of participation in young adult-focused eating disorder treatment

Eating disorders (ED) are serious mental illnesses affecting young adults (YA). Parent-supported treatment for this age cohort is an important consideration given the unique developmental needs and norms of familial social support, but more research is needed to understand parental perceptions of treatment involvement.

33 parent-supports of YA with ED completed self-report assessments at admission and discharge of participation in brief, intensive, young-adult focused eating disorder treatment. Assessments measured programme satisfaction, parental self-efficacy, and parent and YA report of eating disorder-related psychopathology. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to examine pre-post outcome differences and between group differences among parent-supports and their YA (i.e., the patients) on eating disorder psychopathology, clinical impairment, and family functioning using the EDEQ/P-EDEQ Global, P-CIA/CIA, and Family Assessment Device Family Functioning scales. Group differences across time points were examined with paired sample t-tests adjusted for multiple comparisons. Changes in parental self-efficacy were examined separately using two-tailed paired sample t-tests.

Parents reported high acceptability and learning, improvements in self-efficacy, and significant reductions of YA psychopathology at post-treatment. Parents reported comparable reductions in ED psychopathology post-treatment, but significantly greater reductions in clinical impairment compared to YA. Measures of family functioning did not improve for either parent or YA at post-treatment.

Results from this study suggest that parental involvement in a YA programme is feasible and acceptable from a parental perspective and improves parental self-efficacy.