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Research with parents/carers of young people with an eating disorder

4 replies

Ln235 · 03/06/2023 17:56

Hi there,
I’m a trainee clinical psychologist doing some research as part of my training that involves parents/carers of young people (aged 13-19) with an eating disorder in the UK.
The study involves filling in a questionnaire that takes up to 30 minutes in total. If you’re interested in participating, there’s some more info on the poster I’ve attached, or you can follow this link: https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/B337D971-FB60-4AF2-AF88-FDD55DAC03F6

Research with parents/carers of young people with an eating disorder
OP posts:
Notagardener · 03/06/2023 22:29

Sorry, I don't think questions are very well constructed. Lot of the questions I could not answer as I have no idea what DC does, thinks or feels. Also the question about purging was a bit of a joke as DC has become very good at hiding it.

Ln235 · 04/06/2023 09:25

Thank you for filling in the questionnaires and I’m sorry that they didn’t feel well constructed. I really appreciate your feedback on it and will definitely take that into consideration!

OP posts:
SleepyMathematician · 06/06/2023 05:42

I dipped out before the end because I’m uncomfortable giving mine and my child’s exact date of birth (cannot see why my exact date of birth is in any way relevant - an age bracket narrowing it to, say, 3-5 years for me would be enough for research purposes to see if I am a younger or older parent etc).
I’d have been happy to give exact age and/or a school year for my child but not dob. You will have to group age data anyway. As a statistician I can tell you that you are very unlikely to get a large enough volume of replies to meaningfully break it into even a monthly basis - so why make participants be so specific?

I could see very early on it was asking questions I cannot answer, such as what weight she is. I’ve thrown away the scales - this is standard advice. Pointless me guessing. I leave the weighing to the doctor and dietician and even though I am often in the room with her, they record it without mention so as not to provide a further “challenge” or panic for DD. Parents guessing answers with no option to leave the section blank is going to skew your data. I did have a rough idea of her BMI when she was referred on, but that’s all. There are a lot of questions about how she feels but eating disorders are by their very nature secretive.

It’s a no from me I’m afraid. Many questions are phrased around knowing what your child does and feels but these things are, by their very nature, hidden from loved ones. Lies and secrecy are an integral part of an ED. I think you need to think again about some of the questions, their feasibility for a parent to answer in a meaningful way, and their impact on the answering parent. The poster says you know how difficult it is caring for a young person with an ED but I don’t feel the questions themselves and the drop down boxes show this sensitivity. Answering some of them is not a comfortable or easy experience and can be quite triggering - that can be the nature of participating in such research but I do think it needs addressing more specifically and explicitly, early on.

Sorry to be harsh and I do hope you get what you need from your research.

Ln235 · 08/06/2023 09:01

Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and experience of the questions with me. I’m really sorry that it didn’t feel that there was an adequate warning of the triggering nature of some of the questions. I’ll definitely take your points back to the research team and see what can be done.

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