Are recovery stories helpful for women with eating disorders? A pilot study and commentary on future research

Background: Anecdotally it is well known that eating disorder memoirs are popular with people with anorexia nervosa and recovery stories are readily available online. However, no research to date has empirically explored whether such stories are helpful for current sufferers. The aim of the current pilot study was to explore the efficacy of recovery narratives as a means of improving motivation and self-efficacy and to qualitatively explore patient perspectives of such stories. Method: Fifty-seven women with anorexia nervosa and subclinical anorexia nervosa participated in this online study. Participants were randomised to either receive recovery stories or to a wait-list control group. After completing baseline measures, participants read five stories about recovery, and completed post-intervention measures two weeks later. Results: The quantitative results indicated that reading stories of recovery had no effect on motivation and self-efficacy over a two-week period. In contrast, the qualitative results showed that the stories generated thoughts about the possibility of recovery and the majority indicated they would recommend them to others. Conclusions: This study adds to a growing body of research exploring the integration of voices of lived experience into treatment approaches. Future research should focus on 1) identifying for whom and at which stage of illness recovery stories might be helpful; 2) the mechanism via which they might operate; and 3) the most helpful way of presenting such stories

Studies of the epidemiology of bulimia nervosa.

Research on the epidemiology of bulimia nervosa has focused largely on the prevalence of the disorder. As methods have improved, consensus has increased regarding the prevalence rate among adolescent and young adult women--about 1%. However, the accuracy of this figure and its clinical significance must be questioned. In this synthesis of the epidemiological work to date, the authors review the literature from a clinical and research perspective. They recommend a shift in emphasis away from studies of the distribution of the disorder toward studies of the determinants of the whole spectrum of the disturbance that exists in the community

Assessment of eating disorders: interview or self-report questionnaire?

A detailed comparison was made of two methods for assessing the features of eating disorders. An investigator-based interview was compared with a self-report questionnaire based directly on that interview. A number of important discrepancies emerged. Although the two measures performed similarly with respect to the assessment of unambiguous behavioral features such as self-induced vomiting and dieting, the self-report questionnaire generated higher scores than the interview when assessing more complex features such as binge eating and concerns about shape. Both methods underestimated body weight

Evaluation of a new instrument for the detection of eating disorders in community samples.

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate an instrument to detect the various forms of clinical eating disorder that exist among young women in the community. A subsidiary aim was to test an alternative instrument based directly on the DSM-III-R criteria for eating disorders. Participants were 285 young adult women listed in the case registers of two general practices. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that the new (statistically derived) instrument performed well and was better at case identification than the only other instrument currently available. In contrast, the instrument based directly on the DSM-III-R criteria performed poorly. It was not possible to assess the ability of the new instrument to detect cases of anorexia nervosa since there were no cases in the sample