Integrating Family-Based Treatment Principles in the Acute Inpatient Treatment of Adolescents with Restrictive Eating Disorders

Eating disorders (ED) are serious psychiatric illnesses with one of the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. The health sequelae of eating disorders are one of the most common causes of medical hospitalizations at freestanding pediatric hospitals in the United States. The economic impact of EDs on health systems and families is substantial. The Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAHM) recommends family-based treatment (FBT) as the first-line approach for adolescents with restrictive eating disorders due to a large body of evidence demonstrating the treatment’s efficacy and cost effectiveness. Although FBT was originally developed as an outpatient treatment, the tenets and principles of the treatment have also been used in higher levels of care. This brief report discusses how components of FBT were adapted for a medical inpatient unit at a pediatric hospital in order to integrate empirically based treatment.