The Role of a Brief Educational Video Series for Parent of Adolescents With Anorexia Nervosa

Overview

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a brief parent educational video series is feasible, acceptable, and effective for improving parent and patient outcomes for adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa. The main questions it aims to answer are: Do parents want to watch these educational videos and find them helpful/useful ? Do parents who watch the videos report improvement in their knowledge about restrictive eating disorders and self-efficacy in helping their child recover, as well as reductions in stress and burden associated with parenting a child with anorexia? Do adolescents (ages 10-16) report improvements in their eating disorder symptoms when their parents watch these videos? Investigators will compare treatment as usual (traditional family and individual therapy with regular medical and nutrition visits) to treatment as usual plus the parent educational videos to see if the videos improve parental and patient outcomes beyond treatment as usual. Parent and adolescent participants will complete baseline measures including: Parent measures: eating disorder knowledge, self-efficacy, stress and burnout Patient (adolescent) measures: eating disorder symptoms, depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms Parents will complete these measures immediately after first meeting with their child's medical doctor to confirm a diagnosis of a restrictive eating disorder and then again 3 months later. The investigators will also assess the video feasibility and acceptability by asking parents to report their satisfaction with the videos and to assess how many approached families enroll in the study.

Eligible participants are a parent or guardian of an adolescent who has been diagnosed with a suspected eating disorder by a medical provider at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). Parents have told the investigators that they needed more information about their child's eating disorder and treatment at the onset of their child's diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to determine if brief parental educational videos are feasible, acceptable, and provide increased knowledge for parents of adolescents newly diagnosed with eating disorders. The purpose of this pilot study is to see if families are willing and interested in brief educational videos. The investigators are also interested if the videos help support parents through increased knowledge about eating disorder treatment, improved self-efficacy, and reducing stress associated with treatment. A final goal is to see if the intervention helps adolescents recover faster. Procedures The research will be conducted at the following location(s): Baylor College of Medicine and TCH: Texas Children's Hospital. Day of Enrollment: Once a parent consents to participate in the study, they are assigned to either receive treatment as usual (TAU) or TAU plus the parent educational videos (PEV). This assignment is random and every parent has a 50/50 chance of being assigned to one group or the other. Regardless of group assignment, all parents and their adolescent will receive treatment as usual in the eating disorder program at TCH. Within 1 week of Enrollment: Parents in both groups will be asked to complete demographic questions and standardized measures of eating disorder knowledge, parental stress and burden, motivation, and parental self-efficacy. The adolescent will be asked to complete a standardized measure of mental health symptoms, including a measure of depression, anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms. The parent measures should take 10-20 minutes to complete. The adolescent measures should take 5-10 minutes to complete. If a parent is assigned the PEV intervention they will be asked to also watch four videos online each under 7 minutes and complete questions related to their satisfaction of the video content and knowledge gained through the videos. The video content includes: Video 1: Describes the severity of eating disorder symptoms, risk of short and long-term health problems; importance of intervention Video 2: How recovery works - Describes how eating is therapy - the role of parental food management, food exposure, etc. Video 3: Managing ED behaviors - Explains how to respond to food refusal, vomiting behaviors, over exercising behaviors, etc. Video 4: How to talk to your child when they are struggling 3 months after enrollment: Parents in both groups will be asked to complete the questionnaires again 3 months later. Adolescent participants will be asked to complete the same measure again 3 months later. The parent questionnaires should take 10-20 minutes to complete. The adolescent participant questionnaire should take 5-10 minutes to complete. 6 months after enrollment: Adolescents will be scheduled for a medical or nutrition appointment to collect data on their weight and health related changes. This is a standard appointment for all patients in the investigator's Adolescent Medicine clinic but the data collected at that visit will be used to understand how the adolescent participant's weight and health related outcomes have been impacted by treatment with or without the PEV intervention.