Table 3 - uploaded by M. Carmen Terol Cantero
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Relations: social support dimensions and self-concept Academ/Employ Self-Concept Social Self-Concept Emotional Self-Concept Family Self-Concept Physical Self-Concept
Source publication
The aim of this study is to assess social support dimensions (providers, satisfaction and different support actions) in patients with eating disorders (ED), looking at diagnosis, socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, and self-concept.
A total of 98 female ED patients were recruited. The ages of participants ranged from 12 to 34 (Mean = 20...
Similar publications
The subjective evaluation of a psychotherapeutic treatment may be an essential aspect of the recovery from an eating disorder. Our study investigates the subjective treatment evaluation by patients with eating disorders and the accordance with their parents' and psychotherapist's evaluation.
In a sample of 41 eating-disorder patients (M(Age) = 16.3...
Background
Early relapse after inpatient treatment is a serious problem in the management of anorexia nervosa (AN). Specialized aftercare interventions have the potential to bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient care, to prevent relapse and to improve the long-term outcome for patients with AN.
Methods
Following the guidelines of the PRI...
Citations
... The satisfaction of patients with eating disorders with social support is high, 5 and there is a need to include other social support networks for them, in addition to medical care. 6 Online support groups are also important, as holding meetings online allows participation from distant locations. ...
This study systematically reviewed and listed support groups that are currently active in accepting people with eating disorders in Japan. The characteristics of the 50 support groups for eating disorders approved for publication are listed in Table 1 in Supplementary Materials. image
... Patients with eating disorders have been found to lack confidence in identifying their own thoughts and feelings and have low levels of assertiveness [10, 11]; if their mothers consistently listened well, they would be able to explain themselves without anxiety. Marcos reported significant positive correlations between informative support for patients with eating disorders, including listening, encouraging, and advising, and family self-concept as evaluated by the patient [27]. Family self-concept refers to patient-evaluated feelings such as "I feel more or less happy at home" and "parents would help with any type of problem. ...
Background:
Family members of patients with eating disorders, especially their mothers, experience heavy caregiving burdens associated with supporting the patient. We predict that increasing caregivers' support will have a positive effect on their active listening attitudes, mental health, loneliness, and self-efficacy. This study aimed to investigate differences in mothers' active listening attitudes, mental health, loneliness, and self-efficacy improvements between mothers who did and did not experience increased perceived social support.
Main body:
Participants were mothers of patients with eating disorders. Questionnaires for this cohort study were sent to the participants' homes at three time points (baseline, 9 months, and 18 months). The Japanese version of the Social Provision Scale (SPS-10) was used to evaluate social support, the Active Listening Attitude Scale (ALAS) for listening attitude, the UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS) for loneliness, the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) for self-efficacy, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) for depression symptoms, and the K6 for psychological distress. An unpaired t-test was used to determine whether participants' status differed between the groups that did and did not experience increased perceived social support. The mean age of the participants was 55.1 ± 6.7 (mean ± SD) years. The duration of their children's eating disorders was 7.6 ± 5.5 years. The degree of improvement for each variable (active listening attitude, loneliness, self-efficacy, depressive symptoms, and mental health) was the difference in each score (ALAS, ULS, GSES, BDI-II, and K6) from T1 to T3. The degree of improvement in active listening attitude and loneliness was significantly greater in the improved social support group than in the non-improved social support group (p < 0.002 and p < 0.012, respectively).
Conclusions:
Our findings indicate that increasing mothers' perceptions of social support will be associated with improving their active listening attitudes and loneliness.
... Literature on the subject is not devoid of conflicting findings as some studies did not report low levels of social support or satisfaction in patients with ED or relevant symptomatology (e.g., [34,35]), and there are also studies in which ED diagnosis did not seem to be of great importance with regard to aspects of the patients' social support (e.g., [36,37]). Furthermore, concerning the available data, some caution is warranted, as a sizeable number of studies that have investigated the relationship between interpersonal functioning (which includes the concept of social support) and eating psychopathology: (a) did not control for comorbidity with psychopathological entities such as depression, and (b) in several cases, the study samples came from non-clinical populations [38]. ...
... The lower levels of satisfaction with social support that we found in the patients group is in agreement with existing evidence, as prior studies have also described BN sufferers as either unsatisfied or less satisfied with their social support than a control group [26,28,29]. The absence of significant differences that we observed between the three ED corroborates findings from past works, which similarly reported no remarkable differences between AN and BN patients with regard to social support levels [31] or satisfaction [37]. Likewise, Geller et al. [36] more recently found no association between social support satisfaction and "diagnostic status" (AN/BN/ED Not Otherwise Specified). ...
Loneliness and, to a lesser degree, social support are considered under-researched topics in the literature on eating disorders (ED). This study attempted to expand the relevant body of research by examining loneliness in combination with social support in ED patients and in healthy controls (HC). Binge-eating problems, emotional eating, resilience, anxiety, and depression symptoms were also assessed. Thirty-two patients with ED and twenty-nine HC completed the following measures: UCLA Loneliness Scale, Social Support Questionnaire—Short Form, Binge Eating Scale, Emotional Eating Scale, Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire. Eating-disorder patients showed higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of social support—both in terms of perceived availability and satisfaction—than HC. Anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge-eating disorder (BED) subgroups did not differ significantly on either of these variables. In ED patients, loneliness was only correlated with Social Support Satisfaction (negatively) and depressive symptomatology (positively). Patients with ED appear to be lonelier and less satisfied with their social support compared to HC. We found similar levels of loneliness and social support between AN, BN, and BED sufferers. Decreased social support satisfaction and elevated symptoms of depression could account for ED patients’ high levels of loneliness.
... Although the relationship between anorexia and personal connections has been investigated, research on this topic has mostly provided qualitative descriptions or only indirectly focused on young women's social networks (Leonidas and dos Santos, 2014). Studies that have revealed quantitative features of the personal networks of young women with anorexia are scarce and were conducted in a limited number of countries (Quiles Marcos and Terol Cantero, 2009;Tubaro and Mounier, 2014;Pallotti et al., 2018). Additionally, we should note the lack of research on the social networks of people with anorexia in Eastern Europe, especially Russia. ...
... Network size, one of the central characteristics of the social network structure, is usually defined as the number of alters in a personal social network (Wasserman and Faust, 1994;Crawford et al., 2018). Literature on social support reports that the average size of the social support network of individuals with anorexia varies from 5 to 16 alters (Quiles Marcos and Terol Cantero, 2009;Tubaro and Mounier, 2014;Pallotti et al., 2018). Notably, two of these three studies include both men and women (Tubaro and Mounier, 2014;Pallotti et al., 2018), making it difficult to hypothesize whether the network size of people with diagnosed anorexia is gender-specific. ...
... People with anorexia tend to have difficulties with emancipation from their families and are prone to having limited social contact with people outside their families (Ruuska et al., 2007). Moreover, they frequently mention their mothers among their primary social support providers (Quiles Marcos and Terol Cantero, 2009). However, scholars indicate that the social surroundings of people with anorexia have become more diverse due to technological advances, specifically the opportunity to establish and maintain relationships via the internet, and include a large number of partners and friends (Tubaro and Mounier, 2014;Pallotti et al., 2018). ...
Anorexia is a serious threat to young women’s wellbeing worldwide. The effectiveness of mental health intervention and treatment is often evaluated on the basis of changes in the personal networks; however, the development of such measures for young women with anorexia is constrained due to the lack of quantitative descriptions of their social networks. We aim to fill this substantial gap. In this paper, we identify the basic properties of these women’s personal networks such as size, structure, and proportion of kin connections. The empirical analysis, using a concentric circles methodology, is based on 50 ego networks constructed on data drawn from interviews with Russian-speaking bloggers who have been diagnosed with anorexia and write about this condition. We conclude that young women with anorexia tend to support a limited number of social ties; they are prone to select women as alters, but do not have a preference to connect to their relatives. Further research is needed to elucidate whether these personal network characteristics are similar among women with anorexia who belong to different age, ethnic, cultural, and income groups.
... The parents' assessment of their formal networks (healthcare professionals) and informal networks (family, friends, neighbors, and workmates) was obtained by completing the adapted version of the Perceived Social Support Scale (EASP/PSSS) [41] by the authors of [15]. The sources and types of support were evaluated, as well as the parents' satisfaction with this support (whose results are used in this article). ...
Background:
Childhood cancer is a disease with a psychosocial impact on parents who experience health problems and distress. Their reactions depend on the relationship of multiple factors. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the interrelationships between flourishing and the variables linked to the health and wellbeing of parents of children with cancer.
Methods:
Mothers/fathers of children with cancer participated in an exploratory study in response to a series of questionnaires. Likert-type scales were used to measure perceived health, wellbeing, flourishing, stress, coping, and social support.
Results:
Out of a total of 94 children, 138 parents (60 men/78 women) are represented. Participants show physical symptoms and an unstable coping pattern. A path analysis model is presented. As to the goodness of adjustment of the statistics used, good results were obtained. Flourishing tends to coexist with wellbeing, while flourishing coexists negatively with symptoms. There is an indirect relationship between flourishing and poor health. There is a positive relationship between flourishing and coping, as well as between flourishing and satisfaction with the support received (especially from sons/daughters). This support was negatively related to the subjective health report.
Conclusions:
Flourishing is shown as a healthy coping strategy. The results can enrich the development of psychosocial interventions aimed at promoting adequate adaptation.
... People diagnosed with ED usually have difficulties innterpersonal relationships. In bulimia, family relations, in particular, are permeated by conflicts and dysfunctional bonds, withfew problem-solving skills observed (Marcos & Cantero, 2009). The literature points out that the typical family configurations of this psychopathological condition show a firm and sometimes intrusive mother. ...
Transtornos alimentares, como a bulimia, são psicopatologias de etiologia multifatorial que têm nas relações familiares um dos principais fatores desencadeadores e mantenedores dossintomas. Este estudo teve por objetivo analisar as vivências das relações familiares na perspectiva de uma jovem diagnosticada com bulimia, de sua mãe e seu pai. Trata-se de um estudo de caso qualitativo, descritivo e transversal, cujo delineamento abarca a tríade pai-mãe-filha. Foram entrevistados três membros de uma família (pai, mãe e filha diagnosticada com bulimia). Os dados foram coletados por meio de roteiros de entrevista semiestruturada e analisados pela perspectiva do referencial teórico psicanalítico, a partir da construção de categorias temáticas. Os resultados mostraram que, assim como a filha, os pais também apresentaram fragilidades no seu desenvolvimento emocional, culminando em dificuldades no estabelecimento da diferenciação eu-outro nos membros da família. Essas dificuldades culminaram em vivências familiares de instabilidade, com vínculos de dependência impregnados por sensações paradoxais de invasão da intimidade e sentimentos de desamparo. Os resultados encontrados trazem avanços para o conhecimento da área, em especial no nível da compreensão das relações familiares no contexto da bulimia, e oferecem subsídios para o planejamento de ações e intervenções dos profissionais envolvidos na assistência a pacientes e familiares.
... This was an overarching theme and consistent with recent findings suggesting that the interaction of individuals with AN and their social environment, and specifically, the recognition of illness by family and peers, often functions as a facilitator in seeking timely help [12]. Several studies have confirmed that unconditional support from significant others, family, friends and health care providers is an important resource for an individual in recovery from EDs [37], and is related to lower levels of emotional distress and improved well-being generally [38]. Family support, and being believed when disclosing difficulties, has also proven important for seeking help and completing treatment [39,40]. ...
Background
Despite common misconceptions, an individual may be seriously ill with a restrictive eating disorder without an outwardly recognizable physical sign of the illness. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the perspectives of individuals who have previously battled a restrictive eating disorder who were considered “not sick enough” by others (e.g., peers, families, healthcare professionals) at some point during their illness, and to understand the perceived impact on the illness and recovery. Such misconceptions are potentially damaging, and have been previously linked with delayed help-seeking and poorer clinical outcomes.
Methods
Seven women who had recovered from anorexia nervosa or atypical anorexia nervosa participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and interpretive phenomenological analysis was used.
Results
Three main themes emerged: (1) dealing with the focus upon one’s physical appearance while battling a mental illness, (2) “project perfect”: feeling pressure to prove oneself, and (3) the importance of being seen and understood. Participants reported that their symptoms were occasionally met with trivialization or disbelief, leading to shame, confusion, despair, and for some, deterioration in eating disorder symptoms which drove further weight loss. In contrast, social support and being understood were viewed as essential for recovery.
Conclusion
To facilitate treatment seeking and engagement, and to optimize chances of recovery, greater awareness of diverse, non-stereotypical presentations of restrictive eating disorders is needed which challenge the myth that weight is the sole indicator of the presence or severity of illness.
... Decreased mental health (Doll et al., 2005), low perceived control (Bruch, 2001) and high rumination (Rawal et al., 2010) have been linked to increased ED symptoms. Whilst positive social support has been shown to play a protective role, i.e., helping to decrease symptoms (Marcos & Cantero, 2009). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound, negative impact on the lives and wellbeing of much of the population, and it can raise additional challenges for individuals with eating disorders (EDs). During early stages of the UK lockdown, individuals reported disruptions to many aspects of their lives, including reduced feelings of control and serious concerns over the impact of the pandemic on ED symptoms and/or recovery. This study applied a mixed-methods online survey to collect responses from 58 individuals (age 16–65yrs) with lived experience of EDs. Data was collected across two time points (April 2020 and June 2020) to explore the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on this population. The results suggest that higher perceptions of general, external control may be associated with ED recovery. Quantitative results show that individuals who reported recovering from their ED since the first time point, also reported significant increases in perceived control (compared to individuals who had relapsed or whose ED status was unchanged). Thematic analysis generated two themes: ED behaviours as an ‘auxiliary control mechanism’, and loss of auxiliary control after lockdown. Individuals who experienced less perceived control reported a tendency to rely upon eating disorder behaviours as an auxiliary coping mechanism, i.e., diminished external control was directed inwards and replaced with controlling their own behaviour. The preliminary results suggest that perceived control may be a significant factor in ED recovery. Individuals with EDs may be at significant risk of detrimental impacts on their recovery and wellbeing because of the pandemic reducing peoples' sense of control. These preliminary findings highlight the need for further research in this area, including investigation around potential interventions based upon strengthening perceptions of control to promote ED recovery.
... Otherwise, the support tends to be controlling and not as helpful as it was meant to be. 57 Peers of adolescents with eating disorders have pointed to a need for education regarding symptoms and myths about the illness, and information about ways of seeking help. 46 Because supportive relationships can promote recovery, it is suggested that interventions that deal with relationships of different kinds are needed. ...
... 46 Because supportive relationships can promote recovery, it is suggested that interventions that deal with relationships of different kinds are needed. 56, 57 Davies described a group intervention addressing friendship issues, developed for inpatients, with the purpose of maintaining relationships and preventing isolation, and working to gain understanding and support from friends. 41 Perhaps similar group treatments can be arranged at outpatient clinics and/or in other contexts as well, in order to support eating-disorder patients. ...
Background
As suffering from an eating disorder often entails restrictions on a person’s everyday life, one can imagine that it is an important aspect of recovery to help young people learn to balance stressful demands and expectations in areas like the school environment and spare-time activities that include different forms of interpersonal relationships.
Purpose
The aim of the present study was to investigate how adolescents with experience from a restrictive eating disorder describe their illness and their time in treatment in relation to social contexts outside the family.
Patients and methods
This qualitative study is based on narratives of 15 adolescents with experience from outpatient treatment for eating disorders with a predominately restrictive symptomatology, recruited in collaboration with four specialized eating-disorder units. Data were explored through inductive thematic analysis.
Results
The adolescents’ descriptions of their illness in relation to their social contexts outside the family follow a clear timeline that includes narratives about when and how the problem arose, time in treatment, and the process that led to recovery. Three main themes were found: 1) the problems emerging in everyday life (outside the family); 2) a life put on hold and 3) creating a new life context.
Conclusion
Young people with eating disorders need to learn how to balance demands and stressful situations in life, and to grasp the confusion that often preceded their illness. How recovery progresses, and how the young people experience their life contexts after recovery, depends largely on the magnitude and quality of peer support and on how school and sports activities affect and are affected by the eating disorder.
... Several authors (Dimitropoulos, Carter, Schachter, & Woodside, 2008;Kluck, 2008;Limbert, 2010;Marcos & Cantero, 2009) characterize family social network as the main source of social support for individuals with ED. Hypothesizing the existence of a relationship between vulnerable family functioning and the emergence or perpetuation of the disorder (Soenens et al., 2008), it is considered that changes in relationships and family dynamics are necessary for the improvement of the psychopathological condition. ...
This study aimed to investigate emotional meanings assigned to eating disorders (ED) through the narratives of women affected with these psychopathological conditions. Participants were patients in a Brazilian service specialized in treatment of ED. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection. Recruitment continued until data saturation was reached. The verbatim transcription of interview data was analyzed through thematic content analysis, which was employed by two researchers. Results showed that, after the occurrence of ED, participants began to experience feelings of distress, anxiety, and loneliness, which were related to lowered self-esteem and social isolation. Family dynamics was characterized as confrontational, but in contrast, was considered as participants' primary social support network. These data underlined that the emotional meanings attributed to ED need to be addressed and explored by health care professionals to gain a detailed understanding of patients' illness experiences.
