Exploring how Virtual Reality could be used to treat eating disorders: a qualitative study of people with eating disorders and clinicians who treat them

This was a qualitative study exploring the possible use of VR in the treatment of eating disorders, with people with eating disorders (referred to here as people with lived experience, PWLE) and clinicians (CL) with experience of treating them. The dataset consists of three focus groups with people with personal experience of an eating disorder, and four semi-structured interviews with clinicians experienced in treating them (all conducted online using video-conference software). We then analysed these data thematically, seeking to understand the experiences and opinions of participants. The transcripts of these interviews have been anonymised, to prevent participants from being identified. These data were collected between October 2020 and September 2021 by Dr Helen Bould (ORCID 0000-0001-8163-3210) and Prof Lucy Biddle (ORCID 0000-0002-1090-8771), University of Bristol. Ethics approval was obtained from the Faculty of Health Science Research Ethics Committee at the University of Bristol (reference:7545).