Quality of Life and Family Relations in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa

This article is about the family relations of patients with anorexia nervosa. Patients’ evaluation of the functioning of the family as a whole and their separate relations with each parent were analysed. Taking Murray Bowen’s family systems theory as his point of departure, the present author assumed that patients would evaluate the functioning of their family negatively, but at the same time would positively assess their relations with each parent separately. This article presents the results of the author’s own study of 10 participants, conducted in 2007. The participants were divided into two groups: a clinical group, consisting of 5 women diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, and a control group of 5 healthy, female secondary school pupils. The clinical group was heterogeneous. The patients’ age ranged from 18 to 28 (M=21; SD=2.3) and they also varied with respect to level of education. All the patients lived in Warsaw. The research instruments used included the Family Relations Questionnaire with its three component questionnaires (Family Questionnaire, Couple Rela tions Questionnaire, and Self-esteem Questionnaire). Each scale has items concerning the behavioural aspect of family functioning, intra-psychic functioning and moral functioning. Patients with anorexia did in fact evaluate their family as a whole negatively while evaluating their separate relations with each parent positively. Their ratings of relations with father were less positive than relations with mother. The author tries to link the results with QOL issues, because family relations are a factor often used to rate quality of life.