Distress Among Parents Attending Family‐Based Treatment for Eating Disorders: A Test of the Common Sense Model

ABSTRACT The Common‐Sense Model of Self‐Regulation (CSM) is used extensively to understand parents' cognitive and emotional illness representations of paediatric illnesses and how they influence parental distress. The current study examined the utility of the CSM in understanding parental distress among parents attending family‐based treatment (FBT) for eating disorders (ED). The aim was to detail parents' illness representation of their child's ED and test the hypothesis that threatening cognitive and emotional illness representations is positively associated with parental distress. A cross‐sectional survey was used to examine parents' illness representations and their associations with psychological distress. Content analysis was used to code causal explanations for EDs assessed by free response. Parents viewed their child's ED as a threatening illness, associated with severe symptoms, chronicity and negative emotional impact. Parents attributed ED to external stressors and child‐related psychological vulnerabilities and mental health factors. Parental distress was significantly associated with parents' emotional burden in response to the illness and poor understanding of their child's ED. The findings support the use of the CSM for understanding parental distress and suggest that adjunctive components within FBT should focus on improving parents' understanding of ED and addressing the emotional impacts of their child's ED to reduce parental distress.