Background: Caring for a loved one with an eating disorder typically comes with a multitude of challenges, yet siblings and partners are often overlooked. It is important to understand if current clinical guidance for supporting carers are effective and being utilised for these groups, to help meet their needs.Aims: To identify the experiential perspectives of siblings and partners of a loved one with an eating disorder compared with guidance for improving the adequacy of support provided to carers published by Beat and Academy for Eating Disorders.Method: Three online focus groups were held for ten siblings and five partners from across the UK (12 females and three males). Carers had experience of caring for a loved one with anorexia nervosa (13 carers) or bulimia nervosa (two carers), across a range of therapeutic settings. Focus group transcriptions were analysed with thematic analysis.Results: Four key themes were identified: (a) role-specific needs, (b) challenges encountered by siblings and partners, (c) generic needs and helpful strategies or approaches, and (d) accounts of service provision and family support.Conclusions: Overall, the majority of experiences reported by siblings and partners did not meet the published guidance. Consequently, clinical practice recommendations were identified for services, alongside the charity sector, to take a proactive approach in detecting difficulties, providing skills training and emotional/practical support, adapting/tailoring peer support groups and supporting online facilitation. Our findings part-informed the design of our national online survey on loved ones’ experiences of care in eating disorders.

Background: Sexual orientation is usually developed during the adolescence, which coincides with the eating disorders peak onset. This paper aims to explore existing literature to identify whether there is an association between sexual orientation and eating disorder‐related eating behaviours (EDrEBs) in this age‐group.Methods: This review was based on the PRISMA guidelines, covering the published articles between 1990 and 2021. A meta‐analysis of the proportion of sexual orientation and the adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confident intervals was reported.Results: Ten studies (412,601 participants) were included in this review. The results demonstrated adolescents identified as minority sexual orientation, particularly homosexual males were with higher OR of EDrEBs, as follows: Homosexual (binge eating: M = 7.20, F = 2.14; purging: M = 5.40, F = 2.41; diet pills use: M = 3.50, F = 2.59; dieting: M = 3.10, F = 1.75); Bisexual (binge eating: M = 4.60, F = 2.26; purging: M = 4.44, F = 2.37; diet pills use: M = 3.42, F = 2.30; dieting: M = 2.36, F = 1.86).Conclusions: Adolescents who were of a minority sexual orientation were more vulnerable to EDrEBs than their heterosexual peers. Healthcare professionals and sexual minority communities should be primed to facilitate earlier recognition and access to services in these vulnerable groups.

Background: Parents of a loved one with an eating disorder report high levels of unmet needs. Research is needed to understand whether clinical guidance designed to improve the experience of parents has been effective.Aims: To establish parents’ experiential perspectives of eating disorder care in the UK, compared with guidance published by Beat, a UK eating disorders charity, and Academy for Eating Disorders, the leading international eating disorders professional association.Method: A total of six focus groups (one online and five face-to-face) were held throughout the UK. A total of 32 parents attended. All participants were parents of a loved one with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa or atypical anorexia nervosa (mean age 22 years; mean duration of illness 4.4 years). Focus groups were transcribed, and the text was analysed with an inductive approach, to identify emerging themes.Results: Four key themes were identified: (a) impact of eating disorder on one's life, (b) current service provisions, (c) navigating the transition process and (d) suggestions for improvement.Conclusions: Current experiences of parents in the UK do not align with the guidelines published by Beat and Academy of Eating Disorders. Parents identified a number of changes that healthcare providers could make, including improved information and support for parents, enhanced training of professionals, consistent care across all UK service providers, policy changes and greater involvement of families in their loved one's care. Findings from this project informed the design of a national web-survey on loved ones’ experience of care in eating disorders.

People with eating disorders often experience disturbances of body experience across the domains of cognition, affect and perception. Some body-oriented therapies (BOT) - body-oriented psychological therapies (BOPT) and holistic body-oriented therapies (HBOT) - aim to improve mind-body connection and body experience and help people feel differently about managing their eating behaviours. This review aimed to identify and describe these BOT for eating disorders, investigate their effects and explore patients' experiences. A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Nine databases were systematically searched. Included studies focused on BOT used to treat people with an ED diagnosis. Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklists were used to assess quality of included studies. Qualitative data on participants' experiences of BOT were synthesised using thematic synthesis and heterogeneous quantitative data synthesised narratively. 21 BOT studies were included. Three out of four RCTs showed some reduction in eating disorder symptoms, improved attitude towards the body and emotional regulation. Other quantitative studies reported improvements including emotional regulation, interoceptive awareness, body perception, and ED symptomatology. Qualitative data found positive impact on participants' subjective body experience. Variable study quality means caution is needed to interpret the impact of BOT on any outcomes. BOT involves practice that takes time and requires repetition to make a longer-term or meaningful difference to participants' bodily experience and mind-body connection. Measures designed with a 'top-down' approach to understanding mental health might miss out on some of the embodied experiences that BOT are able to positively influence.

Background: Access to psychological health care is extremely difficult, especially for individuals with severely stigmatized disorders such as eating disorders (EDs). There has been an increase in children, adolescents, and adults with ED symptoms and ED, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. Computer-based self-help platforms (± associated apps) allow people to bridge the treatment gap and receive support when in-person treatment is unavailable or not preferred. Objective: The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of computer-based self-help platforms for EDs, some of which may have associated apps. Methods: The proposed systematic review will follow the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. This review will report and evaluate the literature concerning the efficacy of self-help platforms for EDs. Articles were obtained from the Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health, and APA PsycInfo. The inclusion criteria included research with original data and gray literature; research evaluating the efficacy of web-based psychoeducational self-help platforms for EDs; people with an ED diagnosis, ED symptoms, at risk of developing EDs, or from the general population without ED-related behaviors; pre– and post–computer-based ± associated apps intervention clinical outcome of ED symptoms; pre– and post–computer-based ± associated apps intervention associated mental health difficulties; and literature in English. The exclusion criteria were solely guided self-help platforms, only in-person interventions with no computer-based ± associated apps comparison group, only in-person–delivered CBT, self-help platforms for conditions other than eating disorders, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, posters, leaflets, books, reviews, and research that only reported physical outcomes. Two independent authors used the search terms to conduct the initial search. The collated articles then were screened by their titles and abstracts, and finally, full-text screenings were conducted. The Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 tool will be used to assess the risks of bias in the included studies. Data extraction will be conducted, included studies will undergo narrative synthesis, and results will be presented in tables. The systematic review will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Results: The authors conducted a database search for articles published by May 31, 2024. In total, 14 studies were included in the systematic review. Data charting, synthesis, and analysis were completed in Microsoft Excel by the end of July 2024. Results will be grouped based on the intervention stages. The results are expected to be published by the end of 2024. Overall, the systematic review found that computer-based self-help platforms are effective in reducing global ED psychopathology and ED-related behaviors. Conclusions: Self-help platforms are helpful first-stage resource in a tiered health care system. Trial Registration: PROSPERO CRD42024520866; https://tinyurl.com/5ys2unsw International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/60165