Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Research has shown that shame is a powerful emotion that has consistently been shown to have a significant relationship with eating disorders in adolescents throughout research (Kelly & Tasca, 2016; Mustapic, Marcinko, & Vargek, 2015). Although research has shown that alleviating feelings of shame tends to facilitate quicker symptom remission (Munroe, Randell, & Lawrie, 2016), there is limited research that examines the adolescent perspective and the role of health care professionals and parents on shame resilience (Kelly, Carter, & Borairi, 2014). This is important to understand, as eating disorder clinics across Canada highly emphasize the role of parents and the delivery of care (Nicholls & Viner, 2005). The aim of this study is to examine critical incidents that describe patients' experiences that helped or hindered shame-resilience, including the role of health care professionals and parents. Twenty participants ages 14-18 will be recruited from patients admitted to an eating disorder clinic in British Columbia, and interviewed three months to a year after being discharged. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) will be used through retrospective self-report, and the data will be analyzed by summarizing critical incidents that were helpful and hindering. The findings of this research will: (a) clarify factors that help and hinder shame resilience for adolescents with eating disorders, (b) provide helpful information for relapse prevention programs, professional development for health professionals, and health care policy, and (c) shape future research regarding successful interventions for building shame resilience.