Understanding How Group Family Therapy Helps Adolescents With Eating Disorders

This research study wants to better understand how multifamily therapy — a treatment where several families meet together in groups — helps teenagers with anorexia nervosa and their families. Researchers will interview or talk in focus groups with teenagers, parents, and siblings who have completed the therapy program to learn what parts of the treatment were most helpful and how it changed their family relationships and the eating disorder symptoms.

Anorexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder that affects many teenagers and has major effects on the whole family. While doctors know that involving families in treatment works well, researchers want to understand exactly how and why the group therapy approach is effective so they can improve the program and help more families in the future.