ERIKSBERGSGÅRDEN’S EATING DISORDER TREATMENT UNIT: PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS AND TREATMENT OUTCOME

Abstract: Introduction: Eating disorders are serious psychiatric disorders that often require specialized care. Associated psychiatric comorbidity is frequent, with the most common comorbid conditions being anxiety and mood disorders. Eriksbergsgården in Örebro is one of Sweden’s specialized eating disorder treatment units.Aim: Primary aims were to describe clinical characteristics of the adult patient group at Eriksbergsgården and to evaluate treatment outcome and patient satisfaction at the one-year follow-up. An additional aim was to examine if factors such as psychiatric comorbidity affected treatment outcome.Methods: This study used data from Riksät and Stepwise, two large-scale Swedish registers for eating disorder treatment. Data for this study was registered into Stepwise and Riksät at Eriksbergsgården between August 2010 and December 2017 and 489 adult patients of both genders constituted the study group. Patient characteristics and DSM-IV axis I psychiatric comorbidity were assessed at the initial evaluation. At the one-year follow-up, treatment outcome and patient satisfaction were evaluated.Results: The most common diagnoses in this patient material were eating disorder not otherwise specified, 56.6 %, followed by bulimia nervosa, 26.4 %. At the initial evaluation, 62.0 % of the patients suffered from psychiatric comorbidity. Of the patients with initial comorbidity, 43.3 % were recovered at the one-year follow-up, compared to 62.8 % of the patients with no initial comorbidity, p=0.021.Conclusion: Our results confirm the previously known fact that psychiatric comorbidity among eating disorder patients is common. Also, the results identify psychiatric comorbidity as a possible factor to have negative effect on the treatment outcome.