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. 2021 Jul;25(5):1409-1421.
doi: 10.1177/1362361321991257. Epub 2021 Feb 15.

'It's not that they don't want to access the support . . . it's the impact of the autism': The experience of eating disorder services from the perspective of autistic women, parents and healthcare professionals

Charli Babb  1 , Janina Brede  2 , Catherine R G Jones  1 , Mair Elliott, Cathy Zanker, Kate Tchanturia  3 , Lucy Serpell  2   4 , Will Mandy  2 , John R E Fox  1
Affiliations

'It's not that they don't want to access the support . . . it's the impact of the autism': The experience of eating disorder services from the perspective of autistic women, parents and healthcare professionals

Charli Babb et al. Autism. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

This study explores autistic women's experiences of eating disorder services. About 20%-30% of people with anorexia nervosa are also autistic, and current treatments seem not to work as well for them. We interviewed 15 autistic women with experience of anorexia nervosa, 12 parents of autistic women with anorexia nervosa, and 11 healthcare professionals working in eating disorder services. We asked autistic women and parents about their experiences of eating disorder services, and we asked healthcare professionals about their experiences treating autistic women with anorexia nervosa. Participants' views were represented by three overall themes: misunderstanding autism and autistic traits, one treatment does not fit all, and improving accessibility and engagement within services. We found that autistic women face many barriers when in treatment for anorexia nervosa, often because of a lack of autism understanding within eating disorder services. Future research should look at developing anorexia nervosa treatments that can specifically help autistic individuals.

Keywords: anorexia nervosa; autism; co-occurrence; eating disorder services; females; qualitative research.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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