Table 9 Multi family therapy for eating disorders
From: Canadian practice guidelines for the treatment of children and adolescents with eating disorders
| Certainty assessment | Impact | Certainty | Importance | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE | Study design | Risk of bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other considerations | |||
| Good Outcome at End of Treatment (assessed with: Morgan Russell Scale), Psychological Symptoms (EDE) | |||||||||
| 1 | randomised trials | not serious | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | RCT (n = 169) of adolescents with AN aged 11–18 comparing MFT to FBT (91% female). 65/86 (75.6%) good outcome at end of treatment in MFT versus 48/83 (57.8%) in the FBT group - significant difference. No differences between groups seen on the EDE. Both groups improved over time on the EDE. | ⨁⨁⨁⨁ HIGH | CRITICAL |
| not serious | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | No differences between groups seen on the EDE. Both groups improved over time on the EDE. | ⨁⨁⨁⨁ HIGH | CRITICAL | ||
| Weight (assessed with: Percent ideal body weight) | |||||||||
| 1 | Case control | serious a | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | Retrospective case control study looking at MFT versus TAU for AN. 50 female adolescents aged 11–18 were included (25 in MFT group and 25 in TAU group). Those in MFT restored weight to a higher percentage (99.6% vs. 95.4%). | ⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW | CRITICAL |
| Weight (assessed with: kg and BMI) Psychological Symptoms (assessed with: EDE, EDI) | |||||||||
| 4 | Case Series | very serious a,b | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | Four studies without a control condition. Total n = 142 adolescents (5 males, 137 females), Diagnoses were mixed including AN, EDNOS and BN. Significant improvements in weight were reported. | ⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW | CRITICAL |
| very serious a,b | not serious | not serious | not serious | none | Improvements in psychological symptoms were seen pre to post MFT. In a case series of 10 adolescents aged 13 to 18 years, EDE scores decreased from 4.31 to 3.41 (cohen’s d 0.82). | ⨁◯◯◯ VERY LOW | CRITICAL | ||