Does multimodal inpatient treatment help some adolescents with severe ARFID?

Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is a recently described disorder. Data on inpatient treatment is still scarce, ARFID mainly being an outpatient condition. The purpose of this study is to describe a rare population of adolescents with severe ARFID receiving full-time multimodal inpatient care by examining their clinical characteristics, management, and evolution.

We conducted a retrospective study on a series of patients diagnosed with ARFID who were hospitalised from 2005 to 2022. This study was carried out at the Adolescent Medicine department of a University Hospital in Paris, France, specialising in the treatment of eating disorders.

Sixteen adolescents aged 12 to 17 were hospitalised for severe ARFID associated with malnutrition, growth retardation, pubertal delay, and/or psychiatric comorbidities. All but one had body mass indexes less than -2 standard deviations. Mean BMI upon admission was 14,1 [standard deviation=1,8]. They benefited from multimodal treatment plans supported by a multidisciplinary team, including nutritional, somatic and psychiatric transdisciplinary assessment and care, residential care, and family involvement. Length of stay was five months on average, and 50% had achieved normal body mass index at discharge.

Full-time inpatient care with multimodal and multidisciplinary interventions and tailored management can help restore normal weight for some adolescents. These interventions are aimed at patients with severe ARFID with major complications such as stunted growth and delayed puberty, and/or comorbidities such as depression. Specific subtypes of patients with severe ARFID need to be identified to delineate their characteristics, prognosis, and treatments effective for this group.