Wanted: Mothers Of Children With Anorexia Nervosa For Anonymous Study

Are you the mother of a child with Anorexia Nervosa?  An anonymous study is looking for your input concerning your experience.

I was recently contacted by Marissa Alexander, who is looking for participants for a study. In her own words;

I'm now a 5th year Counseling Psychology student working on my Ph.D. at Fordham University in New York. I have been working on a research team for about 4 years that has aimed to shed light on the experience of parents and caregivers of children with Anorexia. In our research, we found that the caregiving experience was often stressful and overwhelming, and caregivers often reported feeling misunderstood by treatment providers, excluded from their child's treatment, and even blamed for the development for their child's disorder. In addition, parents often reported having little information and feeling "lost," not knowing which treatment provider, hospital, or method would be effective in treating their child's illness.

With that in mind, I developed my dissertation research in order to lend a voice to parental caregivers, and understand how it is that parents and families cope with Anorexia. My hope is that with these findings, more effective support services can be developed for parents, and the stigma surrounding Anorexia and other eating disorders may be reduced.

I am so grateful for the mothers who have already participated in the study to share their experience and allow us to understand how the illness has affected them. I'm hoping to reach as many people as possible with the opportunity to participate. 

More on the study;

Are you the mother of a child who is currently receiving treatment for Anorexia Nervosa? If so, we’d like to invite you to participate in an anonymous study that examines the experience of caring for a child with Anorexia Nervosa. This study will look at how a child’s eating disorder affects the parents and family, and how families cope with caring for a child with Anorexia. We hope these research findings will provide greater insight into how a child’s illness affects families, so that more support services can be developed to help parents and caregivers.

To be eligible for this study, you must be the mother to a child with Anorexia and currently be in a committed relationship or marriage, cohabitating with your partner or spouse. If your child is between the ages of 10-21, is currently receiving outpatient treatment for Anorexia Nervosa, and is currently living with you and your spouse/partner at home, we invite you to participate in this important study. Participation will involve: Completing the questionnaire online will take approximately 15-30 minutes.  You will not be asked to provide your name at any time-- Publications or presentations about the research findings will not include individual responses, only summary data on all participants will be presented. If you would like more information about this study, please contact Marissa Alexander at bmamiller@fordham.edu, or Dr. Merle Keitel at mkeitel@fordham.edu. 

To participate in this study, click on the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6QPPY8M

 Please share this post with anyone you know who qualifies for participation. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Mrs.M