Clinical effectiveness of a skills training intervention for caregivers in improving patient and caregiver health following in-patient treatment for severe anorexia nervosa: pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

Background: Families express a need for information to support people with severe anorexia nervosa.

Aims: To examine the impact of the addition of a skills training intervention for caregivers (Experienced Caregivers Helping Others, ECHO) to standard care.

Method: Patients over the age of 12 (mean age 26 years, duration 72 months illness) with a primary diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and their caregivers were recruited from 15 in-patient services in the UK.

Carers' assessment, skills and information sharing (CASIS) trial: a qualitative study of the experiential perspective of caregivers and patients.

Background: Families express a need for guidance in helping their loved ones with anorexia nervosa (AN). Guided self-help interventions can offer support to caregivers.

Methods: One hundred seventy-eight adult AN patients and their caregivers were recruited from 15 UK treatment centres.

Disseminating skills to carers of people with eating disorders: an examination of treatment fidelity in lay and professional carer coaches.

Family members of people with eating disorders (EDs) have high levels of stress and can use maladaptive methods of coping. We have developed an intervention, using motivational interviewing (MI) strategies that trains lay and professional carer coaches (CCs) to support carers of adolescents with EDs to use more adaptive coping procedures. The aim of this study is to measure treatment integrity in coaches with either academic or lived experience.

Confirmatory factor analysis for two questionnaires of caregiving in eating disorders.

Objective: Caring for someone diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED) is associated with a high level of burden and psychological distress which can inadvertently contribute to the maintenance of the illness. The Eating Disorders Symptom Impact Scale (EDSIS) and Accommodation and Enabling Scale for Eating Disorders (AESED) are self-report scales to assess elements of caregiving theorised to contribute to the maintenance of an ED. Further validation and confirmation of the factor structures for these scales are necessary for rigorous evaluation of complex interventions which target these modifiable elements of caregiving.

A multi-centre cohort study of short term outcomes of hospital treatment for anorexia nervosa in the UK.

Background: Individual, family and service level characteristics and outcomes are described for adult and adolescent patients receiving specialist inpatient or day patient treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN). Potential predictors of treatment outcome are explored.

Method: Admission and discharge data were collected from patients admitted at 14 UK hospital treatment units for AN over a period of three years (adult units N = 12; adolescent N = 2) (patients N = 177).

Carers' assessment, skills and information sharing: theoretical framework and trial protocol for a randomised controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of a complex intervention for carers of inpatients with anorexia nervosa.

Experienced Carers Helping Others (ECHO) is a guided self-help intervention for carers of people with eating disorders to reduce distress and ameliorate interpersonal maintaining factors to improve patient outcomes. The aim of this paper is to describe the theoretical background and protocol of a randomised controlled trial that will establish whether ECHO has a significant beneficial effect for carers and the person they care for. Individuals with anorexia nervosa and carers will be recruited from eating disorder inpatient/day patient hospital services in the UK.