Group Parent Training: A Novel Approach for the Treatment of Eating Disorders

Abstract

This paper describes the rationale, development, and implementation of a group parent training program designed to assist caregivers in the management of their child's eating disorder while facilitating the development of a healthy home environment for sustained change. The content of this program instructs caregivers in disorder management and capitalizes on caregivers as role models of adaptive behavior. Strategies are provided to address acute disorder management, features of caregivers that may impede task implementation, and environmental and attitudinal changes. The group format enhances social support, accountability, and self-efficacy. A preliminary qualitative evaluation and future directions are described to assist healthcare professionals in better meeting the needs of caregivers of these disorders.

Understanding how parents cope with living with someone with anorexia nervosa: Modelling the factors that are associated with carer distress

“…12 In light of the severity of the illness and the impact on carers and families, it is becoming increasingly recognized that professionals need to address carer needs and provide families with the resources necessary to enable caregiving as well as help to create a familial environment which is conducive to adaptive changes in family functioning. 25,26 Identifying and addressing carer needs carries unquestionable prognostic significance: providing support to carers and lowering their distress can empower carers, enabling the family to serve as an important resource in treatment, which in turn may help reduce relapse as well as convey other benefits to sufferers. 27 The need for providing carers with information and support has also been recommended by the NICE b ED guidelines for England and Wales.…”

Developing a model of mental health self-care support for children and young people through an integrated evaluation of available types of provision involving systematic review, meta-analysis and case study

“…Our initial pool of 33 studies with nominally qualitative data contained 17 studies in which participants' views on self-care support interventions were obtained from open-ended questions on a satisfaction survey, conducted as part of a controlled or uncontrolled trial; 12 qualitative (focus group or interview) studies; and four service evaluations. Of these, 11 qualitative studies, 71,100,147,149,150,152,[153][154][155][156][157] one service evaluation 148 and one study with data from an open-ended satisfaction survey 151 met our quality criteria.…”

“…The 13 included papers comprised three British studies (Garraway 2010; 153 Gowers 2010; 71 Stewart-Brown 2004 100 ), four from the USA, 151,152,154,157 two from Australia, 149,150 and one each from Jamaica, 147 Ireland, 148 Hong Kong 155 and Denmark in collaboration with Lithuania. 156 A range of mental health conditions were covered: four considered general mental health conditions (where a specific condition was not 149,151 and one psychosis.…”

Incorporating Dispositional Traits into the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa

“…Table 1 provides some examples that parents are given to differentiate these different attention foci. Parents are assigned homework assignments in which they must practice this shift of focus (Zucker et al 2005). Thus, they are not directly trying to change the adolescent by manipulating her or his attention; rather, they are gently shaping this shift in focus via their own role modeling and via shifts in reinforcement contingencies as described below.…”