Eating disorder presentations to a child and adolescent mental health service in the UK before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

IF 2.8 3区医学 Q2 PSYCHIATRY

Eating behaviors Pub Date : 2025-08-01 Epub Date: 2025-07-23 DOI:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2025.102016

Robyn Bailey , Liana Romaniuk , Nicky Cannon , Michelle Clifford , Fiona McNicholas , Ian Kelleher , Jenni Leppanen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Purpose

Previous studies have reported an increase in new-onset adolescent eating disorder (ED) patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, with some studies showing a change in illness presentation. This study aimed to replicate and expand on previous work by further examining changes in illness and demographic characteristics.

Method

Changes in the number of new ED referrals to a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service were examined between 2019 and 2022. Additional analyses explored changes in duration of symptoms, weight-for-height, the need for more intensive care, age, and socioeconomic status. All analyses were conducted within the Bayesian framework.

Results

A total of 371 new ED referrals were seen during the study period, and a significant increase in new ED cases was observed during COVID-19. This increase was not driven by any particular diagnostic group. There was no evidence for meaningful changes in demographic or illness characteristics.

Conclusions

These findings replicate previous work demonstrating a steady increase in ED patients during the pandemic. We did not find an accompanying change in illness characteristics. There was no significant change in the measure of patients' deprivation, suggesting that the pandemic did not widen the service access gap.

查看原文本刊更多论文

在2019冠状病毒病大流行之前和期间，向英国儿童和青少年心理健康服务机构介绍饮食失调

先前的研究报告称，在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，新发青少年饮食失调（ED）患者有所增加，一些研究显示疾病表现发生了变化。这项研究旨在通过进一步研究疾病和人口特征的变化来复制和扩展先前的工作。方法研究了2019年至2022年间儿童和青少年心理健康服务中心新ED转诊数量的变化。其他分析探讨了症状持续时间、体重身高比、需要更多重症监护、年龄和社会经济地位的变化。所有分析均在贝叶斯框架内进行。结果研究期间共新增急诊371例，新发急诊病例在COVID-19期间显著增加。这种增长不是由任何特定的诊断组驱动的。没有证据表明人口统计学或疾病特征发生了有意义的变化。这些发现重复了先前的研究，表明在大流行期间ED患者稳步增加。我们没有发现疾病特征的伴随变化。对病人的剥夺程度的衡量没有显著变化，这表明大流行病并没有扩大获得服务的差距。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Eating behaviors Multiple-

CiteScore

4.20

自引率

3.60%

发文量

审稿时长

60 days

期刊介绍： Eating Behaviors is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing human research on the etiology, prevention, and treatment of obesity, binge eating, and eating disorders in adults and children. Studies related to the promotion of healthy eating patterns to treat or prevent medical conditions (e.g., hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cancer) are also acceptable. Two types of manuscripts are encouraged: (1) Descriptive studies establishing functional relationships between eating behaviors and social, cognitive, environmental, attitudinal, emotional or biochemical factors; (2) Clinical outcome research evaluating the efficacy of prevention or treatment protocols.