Family functioning is associated with anxiety and depression. Perinatal depression and anxiety are common and influence the well-being of women, partners and their offspring. However, little is known about differences in associations between family functioning and mood symptoms in women and their partners in early pregnancy.

Investigating differences in associations between family functioning and anxious and depressive symptoms in women and their partners in early pregnancy.

In total, 171 woman–partner pairs were enrolled. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item scale (GAD-7) and Family Assessment Device (FAD) were performed. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were applied to investigate the associations.

In pregnant women, all the subscale scores on the FAD were correlated with total scores on the EPDS and GAD-7 (all P < 0.05), whereas only the Roles subscale showed a predicting effect in regression models (P < 0.01). In partners, all the subscale scores on the FAD were related to total scores on the PHQ-9 (all P < 0.05), whereas only the Problem Solving subscale showed a predicting effect (P = 0.029).

Our findings indicate that family functioning in the domain of roles is associated with anxious and depressive symptoms in pregnant women and functioning in the domain of problem solving is associated with depressive symptoms in partners. Clinicians should pay special attention to roles and problem solving when assessing mood symptoms in pregnant women and their partners. This study also provides a basis for family health education in early pregnancy.

Caring for a loved one with an eating disorder typically comes with a multitude of challenges, yet siblings and partners are often overlooked. It is important to understand if current clinical guidance for supporting carers are effective and being utilised for these groups, to help meet their needs.

To identify the experiential perspectives of siblings and partners of a loved one with an eating disorder compared with guidance for improving the adequacy of support provided to carers published by Beat and Academy for Eating Disorders.

Three online focus groups were held for ten siblings and five partners from across the UK (12 females and three males). Carers had experience of caring for a loved one with anorexia nervosa (13 carers) or bulimia nervosa (two carers), across a range of therapeutic settings. Focus group transcriptions were analysed with thematic analysis.

Four key themes were identified: (a) role-specific needs, (b) challenges encountered by siblings and partners, (c) generic needs and helpful strategies or approaches, and (d) accounts of service provision and family support.

Overall, the majority of experiences reported by siblings and partners did not meet the published guidance. Consequently, clinical practice recommendations were identified for services, alongside the charity sector, to take a proactive approach in detecting difficulties, providing skills training and emotional/practical support, adapting/tailoring peer support groups and supporting online facilitation. Our findings part-informed the design of our national online survey on loved ones’ experiences of care in eating disorders.

Reassurance seeking (RS) in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is commonly addressed in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) using a technique called reducing accommodation. Reducing accommodation is a behaviourally based CBT intervention that may be effective; however, there is a lack of controlled research on its use and acceptability to clients/patients, and case studies suggest that it can be associated with negative emotional/behavioural consequences. Providing support to encourage coping with distress is a cognitively based CBT intervention that may be an effective alternative, but lacks evidence regarding its acceptability.

This study aimed to determine whether support provision may be a more acceptable/endorsed CBT intervention for RS than a strict reducing accommodation approach.

Participants and familiar partners (N = 179) read vignette descriptions of accommodation reduction and support interventions, and responded to measures of perceived intervention acceptability/adhereability and endorsement, before completing a forced-choice preference task.

Overall, findings suggested that participants and partners gave significantly higher ratings for the support than the accommodation reduction intervention (partial η2 = .049 to .321). Participants and partners also both selected the support intervention more often than the traditional reducing accommodation intervention when given the choice.

Support provision is perceived as an acceptable CBT intervention for RS by participants and their familiar partners. These results have implications for cognitive behavioural theory and practice related to RS.

Caregiving partners constitute a unique group, who provide both physical and emotional care for patients. There has been extensive research conducted on caregivers during either the caregiving or bereavement phase; however, these phases are often treated as separate entities rather than as part of a continuum.

In this paper, utilizing relevant literature and clinical observations, we map the emotional journey and lived experience of caregivers moving from disease progression, to the end of life, to the dying process itself, and then through life after the death of a partner. Along this journey, we identify the links between pre-death caregiving and bereavement.

Our illustration raises awareness regarding the unmet needs experienced by caregiving partners across the continuum and provides an alternative framework through which clinicians can view this course.

of Results We bolster arguments for improved palliative care services and early interventions with distressed caregiving partners by emphasizing continuity of care both before and after a patient's death.