Parent Emotion Coaching for Anorexia Nervosa

Summary

Family based treatment (FBT) is the evidence based treatment for pediatric anorexia nervosa (AN), but 50% of adolescents do not respond and the consequences for non-response are dire (e.g., 11.5% mortality rate). Expressed emotion and parental warmth are significant mechanisms of treatment outcome in adolescents with AN, which are not explicitly targeted by FBT. The current proposal is a parent emotion coaching skills group designed to augment FBT in the treatment of pediatric AN by arming high expressed emotion families with the skills necessary to implement FBT and improve treatment outcomes (e.g., weight restoration).

Conditions

• Anorexia Nervosa
• Atypical Anorexia Nervosa

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Emotion Coaching

Participants randomized to FBT + EC parent group condition will also receive FBT as part of their standard of care. In addition to FBT, they will receive 10 additional, weekly, parent group sessions (each session is 60 minutes, 6-8 group members), within a 3-month time frame to account for cancellations. The EC intervention is designed to reduce expressed emotion (e.g., critical comments) and increase parental warmth. The intervention includes emotional awareness and emotion regulation skills for parents, and emotion communication skills for parents to use with their teens undergoing FBT including active listening, emotion support, labeling emotions, and coping with emotions. The structure of EC parent group sessions will begin with review of homework as applicable, a didactic component to teach new skills, followed by role plays between parents in the group and interventionist, and live coaching and feedback from the interventionist.

OTHER

Support Group

Participants randomized to FBT + Support Group parent group condition will also receive FBT as part of their standard of care. In addition to FBT, they will receive 10 additional, weekly, parent group sessions (each session is 60 minutes, 6-8 group members), within a 3-month time frame to account for cancellations. The support group will have a facilitator introduce each topic weekly and parents will discuss. The facilitator's role is to ensure the group remains on topic and on time. Weekly discussion topics include: co-morbid medical diagnoses, understanding levels of care in treatment, taking time off from work, and medications.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

  collaborator NIH

• Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Claire M Aarnio-Peterson, PhD · Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-06-24

Primary Completion

2022-12-30

Completion

2023-03-23

Countries

• United States

Study Locations