An alternative to conventional care for young people with anorexia nervosa

A community intensive therapy team (CITT) for young people with complex mental health problems was developed in South Wales in 1998 (Darwish 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.