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This research documents the family struggle and highlights the current omissions concerning the family's role. The need for changes to clinical practice is substantiated. It requires health professionals to scrutinize their own clinical practice and consider modification of the treatment process.

The experiences of parents with a child with anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia nervosa were explored and this article aims to present one component of that study: parents' interactions with health professionals. The research was initiated after anecdotal stories from parents led the authors to undertake a literature review, which revealed a paucity of published research on this topic. Twenty-two interviews were conducted with volunteer parents from New South Wales, Australia. A descriptive qualitative design was used and themes were identified through in-depth analysis. Six themes were identified: finding help, feeling shut out, engagement, images portrayed, being resourceful and parents not prepared to give up. The implications for health professionals include that they acknowledge parental involvement in recovery. We urge the nursing profession, particularly mental health nurses, to work towards establishing collaborative partnerships between families & health professionals in order to achieve a better health outcome for all.

The authors investigated the experiences of parents with children/adult children in metropolitan Sydney, Australia who were living with, or had recovered from, an eating disorder. During regular team meetings, the research assistant who conducted the interviews had described her reactions which led the research team to investigate her experience in more depth. The aim of the present paper was to explore the impact on the research assistant who conducted 22 in-depth interviews with the parents. One of the members of the research team interviewed the research assistant to elicit her reactions. The interview was content analyzed and the following themes were identified: (i). appreciation of an egalitarian model of research; (ii). the emotions expressed by the research assistant; (iii). making sense of the inexplicable and (iv). reflections and comparison to her own life role. The research team would like to advance the theory that the adoption of a formal debriefing mechanism be integrated into the qualitative research process.

This paper reports on one of the key findings from a recent descriptive phenomenological study on lived experience of 10 new graduate nurses (NGNs) in an intensive care unit (ICU) in a major acute care hospital. Interpersonal relationships experienced by NGNs in ICU give rise to diverse thoughts, perceptions and feelings that may have significant impact on their professional development, job satisfaction and retention. The researcher conducted in-depth, semi-structured audio-taped interviews to collect the data. Interaction with others as key theme and related subthemes: interaction with patients; interaction with other members of the ICU team; who is approachable; and feedback emerged. The NGNs' perception of their ability to interact with others, as part of their professional development, is influenced by both (i) how they see themselves and (ii) how they perceive that others see them.