The experience of specialist inpatient treatment for anorexia nervosa: A qualitative study from adult patients' perspectives.

This qualitative study aimed to explore experiences of women currently undergoing specialist inpatient treatment for anorexia nervosa. Interviews were carried out with 21 women with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa from a specialist adult inpatient eating disorder unit. Five master themes emerged using thematic analysis: (1) shifts in control, (2) experience of transition, (3) importance of supportive staff relationships, (4) sharing with peers and (5) process of recovery and self-discovery. Findings suggest that patients experience a process of change and adjustment in relation to levels of perceived personal control, attachment to the treatment environment and a sense of self-identity.

Specific impairments of emotion perception in multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE: Multiple sclerosis (MS) often results in demyelination of a network of frontal-subcortical tracts involved in processing emotional information. We investigated the effect of MS on the ability to identify emotional and nonemotional information from static and dynamic stimuli and determined whether difficulties in emotion perception related to quality of life. METHOD: 32 MS and 33 control participants, matched for age and education, identified emotions and nonemotional information from static images of faces and dynamic videos of people interacting. They also completed cognitive assessment and quality of life ratings. RESULTS: On the static face perception tasks, participants with MS performed more poorly than healthy controls on emotion perception, t(63) = 3.30, p < .01, d = .83, but not identity perception, t(63) = 1.18, d = .30. For the dynamic tasks, the MS group were impaired on emotion perception, t(63) = 3.41, p = .001, d = .86, but not age/gender perception, t(63) = 0.15, d = .04. Ratings of social and psychological aspects of quality of life in MS were related to emotion perception scores, controlling for disease severity and duration, age, depression, and cognitive function, with r2 ranging from .17 to .24. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate a specific deficit in decoding static and dynamic information about emotion in MS, as compared to nonemotional information. There were specific relationships between emotion perception problems and poor social and psychological quality of life, indicating that emotional skills should be considered when evaluating functioning in MS.