Weight restoration in adolescent anorexia: parents’ goal-directed processes

Abstract

Plain English summary Family-based treatment is one of the leading treatments for helping adolescents recover from anorexia. Parents play an essential role in this treatment, yet little is known about how parents translate the principles of FBT into day-to-day life. We studied four cases of five parents while they were using FBT to help their adolescent recover from anorexia. Overall, we found these parents’ actions were guided by three common and overarching goals. First, parents were focused on progressing toward health and well-being, using processes like keeping a focus on adolescent development, trusting, and monitoring progress. Second, parents were focused on creating psychological, emotional, and financial capacity to be successful in FBT, where many of their actions were shaped and constrained by the resources available to them. Finally, parents were focused on negotiating and coordinating partnerships with their co-parent (primarily), as well as others, to stay united in their efforts.

Keywords

• Family-based treatment
• Parent action
• Weight restoration
• Qualitative