The relationship between duration of untreated symptoms and clinical outcomes in first episode eating disorders

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The relationship between duration of untreated symptoms and clinical outcomes in eating disorders (EDs) is not fully understood. We explored whether the duration of prodrome (DOP) or duration of untreated eating disorder (DUED) impacts clinical outcomes. Emerging adults ( N =236) aged 16-25 years, with an early-stage ED were recruited at the outset of treatment, completing a semi-structured interview to establish DOP and DUED. Clinical outcomes were measured at baseline and 12-months. DUED was positively correlated with binge eating ( r s =.236, p <.001) and vomiting ( r s =.131, p =.047) at baseline, and negatively correlated with BMI for anorexia nervosa at follow-up ( r s [58]=-.26, p =.038). After subsequent regression analysis, the only significant finding was DUED as a predictor of the presence of binge eating at baseline. Future studies should examine symptom duration in more diverse samples. • DUED predicted the presence of binge eating at service contact • Neither DOP nor DUED was a robust predictor of clinical outcomes in this early intervention group • Future research may wish to examine the interplay of DOP/DUED with other potential predictors