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Parents as Co-Therapists in Home Treatment for Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa - Factors and Mechanisms .

Author
Abstract
:

Caring for a child with anorexia nervosa (AN) puts a strain on many parents. At the same time, actively involving the parents in treatment to increase their skills tomanage the disorder is important, as it seems to improve the child's prognosis. Home treatment requires the parents to be particularly involved. The aim of this study was to assess parental burden and caregiving skills and the association of these factors with the child's AN pathology in the course of a multidisciplinary home treatment (HoT). After 4 to 8 weeks of inpatient treatment, 22 adolescent patients with AN received home treatment with intensive involvement of their parents as co-therapists. Caregiving burden and caregiving behavior and the symptom severity of the child's AN were assessed using standardized questionnaires on admission to the hospital, at discharge from the HoT, and 1 year after admission (Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-II), Beck Depression Inventory-2 (BDI-II), Accommodation and Enabling Scale for Eating Disorders (AESED), Eating Disorders Symptom Impact Scale (EDSIS)). Parental burden was reduced and the parents' ability to manage their child's AN improved after the step-down treatment frominpatient treatment to home treatment and was also associated with lower eating disorder-specific psychopathology of the patients. HoT as a treatment setting does not seem to burden the parents as co-therapists and is associated with an improvement in skills in dealing with the child's AN.

Year of Publication
:
2022
Journal
:
Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie
Volume
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71
Issue
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5
Number of Pages
:
467-486
ISSN Number
:
0032-7034
URL
:
https://www.v-r-elibrary.de/doi/10.13109/prkk.2022.71.5.467?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dpubmed
DOI
:
10.13109/prkk.2022.71.5.467
Short Title
:
Prax Kinderpsychol Kinderpsychiatr
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