COVID-19-related restrictions may have a serious impact on patients with eating disorders. We conducted semistructured interviews with female adolescent patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) (n = 13, 13–18 years) currently receiving inpatient or outpatient treatment and their parents (n = 10). We asked for their experiences during COVID-19 confinement regarding everyday life, AN symptoms, and treatment. We used thematic analysis to interpret the data. The main themes identified from the patients’ interviews involved restrictions of personal freedom (i.e., leading to tension between patients and family members, reduced motivation to work on recovery), interruption of the treatment routine (emerging risks through self-monitored weight, challenges/opportunities of teletherapy), changes in AN symptoms (more exposure to triggering situations), COVID-19-related fears, and compulsions but also potential opportunities (less stress, better family relationships). The parents discussed changes in daily routines as negative (challenges in maintaining day structures) and positive (more family time, “slowing down”). They expressed reservations about reduced outpatient monitoring and increased teletherapy and discussed challenges in keeping contact with the child and clinicians during inpatient treatment. Moreover, the parents discussed deteriorations and improvements in the patients’ psychopathology. Clinical implications from these in-depth insights include the importance of strengthening communication between changing staff cohorts, patients, and parents; motivational work; and joint weight monitoring with the therapist.

The aim of this study was to explore the factor structure, scale characteristics and convergent validity of a German version of the Eating Disorder Symptom Impact Scale (EDSIS). A total of 335 parents of adolescents and young adults with anorexia nervosa in inpatient or outpatient treatment completed the 24-item German translation of the EDSIS and other measures of caregiving burden and psychological distress. We tested a 4 vs. 6-factor model of the EDSIS using confirmatory factor analyses. The 6-factor model treating items as ordinal variables showed the best fit to the data (CFI = 0.949, RMSEA = 0.064). Strong invariance of this model was shown between the sample of mothers and fathers. Internal consistencies of the EDSIS scales were in the acceptable-to-good range. Bottom effects were observed for the 'Binge-Purge-Impacts' subscale only. Mothers had significantly higher EDSIS scores compared to fathers. The EDSIS total score and most of the subscores showed substantial positive correlations with caregivers' psychological distress, level of depression, anxiety and expressed emotion as well as negative associations with the level of perceived caregiving skills. The German version of the EDSIS is a useful tool to assess caregiving burden in mothers and fathers of patients with anorexia nervosa.