Effectiveness and clinical response rates of a residential eating disorders facility

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a residential treatment program for adults and adolescents with eating disorders across a wide spectrum of measures. Data on body mass, eating disorder severity, depression, anxiety, and two measures of quality of life were collected on 139 consecutively admitted adolescents and 111 adults at a residential treatment program (N = 250). The same measures were completed at post-treatment. Group level analyses showed that adults and adolescents improved on all measures analyzed. Only 1.7% of adolescents and 2.3% of adults were below a Body Mass Index of 18.5 at discharge. Positive results across diagnoses and ages are reported for three subscales of the Eating Disorder Inventory-3, with clinical response rates reported. Using clinical responder analyses, it was found that for all individuals struggling with secondary issues, 74.7% were responders on the Beck Depression Inventory-II, 41.0% on the Beck Anxiety Inventory, 63.5% on a measure of quality of life, and 95.8% were responders on the physical subscale and 72.6% on the mental subscale of the SF-36-v2. This study suggests that residential treatment for eating disorders is effective at the group level, and it was effective for the majority of individuals within the group.