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An alternative to conventional care for young people with anorexia nervosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Anna Goel
Affiliation:
Ty Bryn Unit, St Cadoc's Hospital, Caerleon, Gwent NP18 3XQ, Wales, email: anna.goel@gwent.wales.nhs.uk
Ahmed Darwish
Affiliation:
Glanrhyd Hospital, Wales
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Abstract

Type
The columns
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2008

A community intensive therapy team (CITT) for young people with complex mental health problems was developed in South Wales in 1998 (Reference Darwish, Salmon and AhujaDarwish et al, 2006). We report here a small study of 30 service users (27 female, 3 male) with anorexia nervosa, referred to CITT over a 4-year period.

Mean age at referral was 14.56 years (14.4 for females, 15.67 for males; range 12-17 years); body mass index (BMI) at referral ranged from 13.1 to 18.0 (mean= 15.52). A mean discharge BMI of 19.3 was recorded following an average period of treatment of 16.7 months for females and 10 months for males. The duration of out-patient care provided by CITT ranged from 5 months to 3.5 years for 16 patients, with the remaining 14 patients receiving ongoing intervention. During the 4-year study period no service users were admitted to hospital.

References

Darwish, A., Salmon, G., Ahuja, A., et al (2006) The community intensive therapy team: development and philosophy of a new service. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 11, 591605.Google Scholar
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