Professional Digital Counselling for Eating Disorders in Germany: Results of the DigiBEssst Project Survey on the Perspectives and Experiences of Health Professionals, Individuals With Eating Disorders, and Carers.

OBJECTIVE

The research project DigiBEssst examines existing digital counselling services for individuals with eating disorders (ED) and carers in Germany. It highlights their experiences with digital counselling as well as those of the expert counsellors involved, aiming to derive quality criteria for digital counselling in ED.

METHOD

A mixed-methods design was adopted. Analysing the websites of 181 professional counselling centers, the research team identified 86 counselling centers for ED that offered online counselling. Initially, 29 centres participated in an online survey. Subsequently, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals (n = 15), individuals with ED (n = 13), and carers (n = 10). The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and structured content analysis.

RESULTS

Less than half of the German counselling facilities offered online counselling. The participants emphasised the need for a specific concept, counsellors' profound expertise in ED and online counselling, sustainable funding, sufficient personnel and time resources, and secure platforms to ensure data protection and quality management. Access to professional services requires informative, user-friendly websites, and social media presence.

CONCLUSIONS

The identified prerequisites and quality criteria for professional online counselling developed in this project can provide recommendations for the conceptualisation of digital counselling services.