Eating Disorder Unit, Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
Department for Neurology and Psychiatry of Children and Adolescents, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria.
Eat Weight Disord. 2023 Aug 1;28(1):65. doi: 10.1007/s40519-023-01597-6.
Research on the engagement of fathers in the treatment of childhood psychiatric disorders is scarce. This study aims to investigate differences between mothers and fathers of adolescents with anorexia nervosa regarding parental burden and effectiveness of a parental skills training.
Ninety-one mother-father dyads caring for a child with anorexia nervosa participated in an 8-week parental skills training and completed a set of questionnaires assessing parental psychopathology, eating disorder related burden, caregiver skills and expressed emotion at baseline and post-intervention.
Fathers showed lower levels of general psychological distress, depression, anxiety and eating disorder related burden as well as lower emotional overinvolvement compared to mothers. The skills training was effective in reducing parental psychopathology, eating disorder-related burden and emotional overinvolvement as well as in increasing caregiver skills with no differences between mothers and fathers. However, session adherence and the willingness to practice skills between the sessions were slightly lower in fathers.
These findings show that fathers are a great resource for the child's eating disorder treatment as they may counterbalance maternal emotional overinvolvement and over-protection. Furthermore, this is the first study demonstrating that fathers can profit from a parental skills training for anorexia nervosa in a similar way as mothers.
Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies.
针对父亲参与儿童精神科疾病治疗的研究较少，本研究旨在探讨青少年神经性厌食症患者的母亲与父亲之间的差异，包括父母负担和父母技能训练的效果。
91 对照顾神经性厌食症患儿的父母参与了为期 8 周的父母技能训练，并在基线和干预后完成了一系列评估父母精神病理学、与饮食障碍相关的负担、照顾者技能和表达情感的问卷。
与母亲相比，父亲表现出较低的一般心理困扰、抑郁、焦虑和与饮食障碍相关的负担，以及较低的情感过度卷入。技能训练可有效降低父母的精神病理学、与饮食障碍相关的负担和情感过度卷入，同时增加照顾者技能，母亲和父亲之间没有差异。然而，父亲的课程参与度和课后实践技能的意愿略低。
这些发现表明，父亲是孩子饮食障碍治疗的重要资源，因为他们可以平衡母亲的情感过度卷入和过度保护。此外，这是第一项表明父亲可以以与母亲相似的方式从神经性厌食症的父母技能训练中受益的研究。
来源于精心设计的队列或病例对照分析研究的证据。
