Original articleUse of Psychopharmacologic Medications in Adolescents With Restrictive Eating Disorders: Analysis of Data From the National Eating Disorder Quality Improvement Collaborative
Section snippets
Data source and collection procedures
The National Eating Disorder Quality Improvement Collaborative (NEDQIC), initially a group of 11 Adolescent Medicine-based ED programs, was formed in 2006 to address knowledge gaps in treatment outcomes in adolescents with restrictive ED [21]. The first phase of the NEDQIC reviewed data from 2006, and the second phase of the collaborative commenced in 2011 with the review of data from 2010.
For Phase 2 of the collaborative, 12 adolescent medicine sites throughout the United States provided data
Results
Across the 12 sites, 635 patients met inclusion criteria for a restrictive ED, and 359 had a 1-year follow-up visit for evaluation, comprising Group 1. Significant differences in sex and diagnosis were noted between those patients in the overall population and those included in Group 1, as males and patients diagnosed with ARFID were less likely to have 1-year follow-up (Table 1). Reasons noted for lack of follow-up data included as follows: recovered/discharged from care (n = 28, 10.1%),
Discussion
Our study found that the rate of reported psychopharmacologic medication use in this adolescent and young adult referral population with restrictive ED was 20% at intake and increased to more than 50% at 1-year follow-up. This latter rate exceeds that in a nationally derived sample of adolescents, in which approximately 20% of patients with any type of ED were taking medication [17]. However, our study population had a high rate of psychiatric comorbidity; both the type and number of
Acknowledgments
Portions of this work were previously presented in the following contexts: (1) Poster Presentation. Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting; 2013 March 13–16; Atlanta, GA and (2) Special Interest Group. Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine 2014 Annual Meeting; 2014 March 23–26; Austin, TX.
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