Journal Article: Care for children and young people with eating disorders

This article was published in the journal ‘Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry’ (June 2020) and may be of interest:

Paediatric medical care for children and young people with eating disorders: Achievements and where to next

Lee D Hudson and Simon Chapman

No other diagnoses epitomise the need for dual consideration of mental and physical health more than eating disorders. Anorexia Nervosa (AN) for example has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder, and half of deaths are thought to be due to physical complications (Sullivan, 1995). For this reason it is crucial for acute paediatrics and eating disorder teams to work closely over the assessment and management of these disorders, particularly in the early stages when physical risks are often highest. This is not as easy as it sounds: mental health and physical health teams are often geographical distant from each other, have different ways of working, and may even view and speak of risk in different ways. Despite this, as for many countries, in the United Kingdom (UK), the journey to provide better paediatric care for children and young people (CYP) with eating disorders has been a gradual one, albeit with a number of recent victories. As two paediatricians working with CYP with eating disorders and eating disorder teams in the UK, we summarise the important developments of the past 10 years in the UK, and look to future steps…

To read the full article, click on the link below:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1359104520931573

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