Original articleAvoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: Illness and Hospital Course in Patients Hospitalized for Nutritional Insufficiency
Section snippets
Patients
Medical records of patients, aged 5–25 years, hospitalized for refeeding between January 2008 and December 2014 at the Cleveland Clinic were reviewed. Patients were included if they were treated using the eating disorder protocol, a protocol designed to stabilize patients with nutritional insufficiency through initiation of refeeding, and met DSM-5 criteria for an eating disorder (n = 342). Patients were excluded if they did not meet DSM-5 criteria for AN or ARFID (n = 74), were hospitalized
Results
A total of 318 eating disorder patients had initial hospitalizations for refeeding during the study period. Of these patients, 41 (13%) who met diagnostic criteria for ARFID and 203 (64%) who met diagnostic criteria for AN were included in the study. The study population was predominantly female (89%; n = 216) and non-Hispanic white (96%; n = 234), with ages that ranged from 9 to 25 years. Table 1 compares patient characteristics at the time of hospitalization. Patients diagnosed with ARFID
Discussion
The present study adds to the literature on ARFID, providing novel information on patients requiring hospitalization for medical instability. ARFID patients made up a small but substantial proportion of hospitalized eating disorder patients and had several significant differences compared with AN patients. On admission, ARFID patients were younger in age, had less weight loss, and exhibited fewer disordered eating behaviors than AN patients. During hospitalization, ARFID patients were less
Funding Sources
This study was not funded.
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Conflict of Interest: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.