Anorexia Literature Review

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Care and Support from family Care and support from the family of the patient with anorexia is essential for the patient on their path to recovery. Family therapy for the patient with anorexia and their families can help to significantly reduce the symptoms that are associated with anorexia. Family therapy can help the patient increase their self worth and self esteem. It also helps build trust between the patient and family members (Hollesen et al 2013). However, encouraging care and support from families can be a challenging process for nurses. The family of the anorexic patient might not have much education regarding eating disorders or anorexia. Conflicts between the family may have occurred due to the impact of anorexia on family relationships.…show more content…
The theme of the effect of a therapeutic relationship on recovery showed that it can be challenging for nurse to engage with the patient with anorexia and form a therapeutic relationship. The therapeutic relationship should be founded upon trust, compassion, empathy and reliability. However due to the nature of patients with anorexia, they can be distant and resistant to treatment, which can make building a therapeutic alliance difficult for the…show more content…
As a result, patients can be resistant to the treatment to establish a healthy weight (Patel et al 2003). The literature also suggests that the nurse should encourage the patient to work on self-esteem while establishing a healthy weight in order to reduce the fear of gaining weight (Karpowicz et al 2009). The theme of care and support from family identified the need for parent education. Parents need information about anorexia and eating disorders and its impact on the family unit (Honey et al 2008). Nurses are generally in daily contact with the anorexic patients and their families and are in the best position to collaborate with the parents as a part of the multi-disciplinary team, by including them in the treatment of the patient (Turrell et al 2005). However, due to family conflicts, care and support from family can be problematic. Parental distress should be addressed in order for the parents to be able to successfully care for their family member (Honey et al 2008). Negative family relationships should be resolved in order to ensure a safe family environment, where the patient with anorexia does not stop eating in an attempt to gain control over the family disputes (Dollos et al 2008). It is clear from the literature review that caring for a patient with anorexia can be challenging to nursing staff. However, building a strong

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