Knowledge of and attitudes to eating disorders amongst educational psychology graduate students

That eating disorders are a health-care concern in North America is indisputable, and there is a growing body of inquiry into whether helping professionals are trained to deal with these issues. This descriptive survey study explores educational psychology graduate students' knowledge of and attitudes toward anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). The importance of including eating disorder education at the graduate training level is emphasized by the findings that, although the 69 participants were able to distinguish most of the behaviours consistent with a DSM-IV diagnosis, the respective mean knowledge scores for AN and BN demonstrate that many of these psychologists-in-training were not able to aptly describe these disorders. Further, subgroup comparisons revealed greater knowledge, liking, and confidence amongst the students with greater amounts of training or experience. Additional attitudinal and knowledge indicators were also considered in this research.