An inpatient treatment program for anorexia nervosa patients

Abstract

Inpatient treatment for anorexia nervosa can be necessary for medical, psychosocial or psychotherapeutic reasons. In general, these patients are characterized by "negative" selection characteristics (illness duration, failures of previous treatments, unfavourable natural milieu, poor motivation, etc). An inpatient treatment program, in which 145 female patients have been admitted, is described. It consists of two phases: a first "symptom directed" phase aiming at weight restoration and normalization of eating, based mostly on behavior therapy principles; in a second "problem oriented" phase, patients are oriented either towards outpatient treatment (family therapy, individual psychotherapy), or, in the majority of the described cases, to an inpatient psychotherapeutic community program. The difficulties of this approach and some outcome results at long-term follow-up are discussed.

How effective is outpatient care compared to inpatient care for the treatment of anorexia nervosa? a systematic review

“…Two case series gave separate outcomes for inpatients and outpatients (Hsu et al, 1979;Crisp et al, 1980;Suematsu et al, 1980Suematsu et al, , 1985Hsu, 1987). There were four exclusively inpatient case series (Pierloot et al, 1982;Vandereycken and Pierloot, 1983a, b, c;Remschmidt and Muller 1987;Remschmidt et al, 1988;Jeammet et al, 1991;Vandereycken and Pieters, 1992) and one exclusively day-patient case series (Gerlinghoff et al, 1998). The day-patient series of cases were treated from 08.00 to 16.30 hours for 7 days per week for an average length of 13 weeks.…”

A Dutch day treatment program for anorexia and bulimia nervosa in comparison with internationally described programs

“…The 5-day treatment program of Amarum was developed over 14 years ago and based on two programs available at that time: the inpatient program for anorexia nervosa as developed by the psychiatric clinic St. Jozef in Kortenberg, Belgium (Pierloot, Vandereycken, & Verhaest, 1982;Vandereycken, 1985) and the Day Hospital Program (DHP) for anorexia and bulimia nervosa in Toronto, Canada (Kaplan, Kerr, & Maddocks, 1992;Piran et al, 1989).…”

Long-term outcome research in anorexia nervosa: The problem of patient selection and follow-up duration

“…The average duration of follow-up of the total sample was 4.2k2.6 years after discharge from the hospital (range: 1 to 12.4 years). The outcome data of this follow-up study have been described elsewhere, both with regard to the general results (Pierloot et al, 1982) and to the analysis of subgroups: dieters, binge eaters, vomiters/purgers (Vandereycken & Pierloot, 1983b).…”