The outcome of adolescent eating disorders: findings from an international collaborative study

Within the International Collaborative Outcome Study of Eating Disorders in Adolescence (ICOSEDA) we studied the clinical features, treatment, and outcome in consecutive cohorts of adolescent patients at five sites in former West Berlin and East Berlin, Zurich, Sofia and Bucharest. A total of N = 242 patients were followed up after a mean interval of 6.4 years in young adulthood. Using semi-structured interviews it was found that on average the patients were in either inpatient or outpatient treatment for 30% of the entire period between first admission and follow-up. Across the five sites 70% recovered from the eating disorder and a similar rate showed good or fair psychosocial functioning and no other psychiatric disorder. However, the combination of these three criteria showed that at follow-up only every second former patient was a mentally healthy and psychosocially well functioning person. The univariate and joint consideration of a large list of predictors lead to the conclusion that individual prognosis of the course of adolescent eating disorders is a hazardous undertaking.