Follow-up study of four cases of pervasive refusal syndrome

The term pervasive refusal syndrome was first mentioned in a paper detailing a sample study of four children by Bryan Lask and colleagues in 1991. This article presents a sample of four children diagnosed with Pervasive Refusal Syndrome, three girls and a boy, seen within a specialist NHS inpatient unit in the North East of England, and describes the main features presented. The main focus of the article will be on long-term prognosis and outcome in relation to day to day functioning and activities. Each of the cases has been followed up once at an interval of between 3 and 16 years after discharge, and the outcomes are presented here. Results suggest that two of the young people with PRS made a complete recovery in the long term, that one was impaired by anorexia nervosa at follow-up, and the remaining young person was reluctant to be interviewed, so it is unclear how well she has maintained her initial discharge recovery.