Recruitment and retention in the concealed weighing arm of a pilot study comparing weighing methods in the treatment of adults with anorexia nervosa: lessons learned.

Empirically supported treatments for eating disorders (EDs) recommend weighing all patients regularly and sharing that weight with patients (i.e. open weighing). However, many ED treatment providers and programs practice blind, or concealed weighing, in which patients are weighed but not informed of their weight. This Last Word article presents the authors' experiences with recruitment and retention in the concealed weighing arm of a pilot study assessing open versus concealed weighing in a treatment program that is historically accustomed to practicing open weighing. Although clinician anxiety has been associated with the use of blind weighing, it may arise whenever clinicians use a weighing method with which they are less familiar. Careful training and support of all multidisciplinary team members and research study personnel is necessary in order to effectively assess the utility of these different weighing methods to determine whether one is associated with better treatment outcomes for patients.