Comparing family-based treatment with parent-focused treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa

Setting: A specialist multi-disciplinary outpatient eating disorders centre in Australia. Patients: Adolescents aged 12-18 years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (AN) or partial AN based on DSM-IV criteria (excluding amenorrhoea) living with at least one parent. Those who presented with severe medical or psychiatric comorbidity were excluded. Those who had previously received family-based treatment (FBT) were also excluded. Intervention: Manualised outpatient treatment delivered as 18 sessions over 6 months. FBT which included the entire family and the adolescent in treatment sessions was compared with PFT. This involved sessions with the same focus as FBT but attended by the parents only, without the adolescent or siblings present. Outcomes: Remission was defined as increase in weight to >95% median BMI at the end of treatment and Global Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) within 1 SD of community norms. Follow-up period: Participants were …