Multi-Family Therapy Intensive Trial for Restrictive Eating Disorders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A quantitative and qualitative exploration of the feasibility and mechanisms of change in multi-family therapy for adolescents with restrictive eating disorders
IRAS ID
234354
Contact name
Ulrike Schmidt
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Family Therapy (FT-AN) is the recommended first line treatment for young people with restrictive eating disorders (ED-R). Nevertheless, approximately 20-30% do not fully respond to FT-AN. As a result, Multi-family therapy (MFT) was developed, which involves up to eight families with an adolescent with ED-Rs working together over the course of FT-AN with a clinical team. There is now evidence that adding up to 10 days of MFT to FT-AN improves outcome (Eisler, et al., 2016) and that adding a week-long intensive MFT may lead to improvements on its own (Marzola, et al., 2015; Wirenga, et al., 2018). Despite these findings the specific impact of an intensive 5-day MFT is not known and requires investigation.
This study has 2 main aims. The first aim is to assess the feasibility and impact of adding an early 5-day MFT intervention to FT-AN and whether this increases early therapeutic gains that lead to better treatment outcomes. The proposed model will consist of adding a 5-day MFT group within the initial eight weeks of FT-AN treatment. This will be compared with FT-AN alone. The aims of the trial are to assess the feasibility of conducting a larger trial by assessing recruitment, attendance and retention rates. It also aims to assess treatment effect sizes and standard deviations for outcome measures to inform sample size calculations for a larger scale RCT.
Secondly, this study aims to understand the unique impact that MFT-AN has on treatment from the perspective of the adolescents, their parents and staff. This will be explored using qualitative methodology by interviewing participants about their experience of treatment and trying to determine what MFT offers that is unique compare to other treatments.
REC name
London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/LO/0839
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jul 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion