Admission and goodbye letters from adolescents with anorexia nervosa in a day hospital

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Care provision for adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) encounters difficulties inherent in the illness (denial, ambivalence) and those related to the fact that it is most often the parents who bring adolescents to care units.A mirror analysis was conductedh the fact that it is the parents who most often bring adolescents to get care.ureuse?nts emplois Our aim was to study the discourse of adolescents with AN treated in a specialized day hospital by way of an analysis of letters written before and after treatment. Method: Adolescents (12-20 years old) treated for AN in a specialized day hospital, providing multidisciplinary care while enabling a return to schooling inside the facility, were included. We analysed 50 admission letters and 23 goodbye letters using general inductive analysis. A mirror analysis was conducted. Results: In the admission letters, symptoms, calls for help, and reports on the care trajectories were central themes. Among the categories noted in the admission and goodbye letters, certain were similar, some mirrored others and a few differed. Conclusion: This study highlights how ambivalence and motivations towards care, recovery and illness interact. It also shows the evolution of the adolescents’ positions via their narratives on their experience of care, the constraints involved and how beneficial it was for them. The results are discussed in a care perspective.