Parents' and professionals' perspective of ARFID
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: Exploring the perspectives of parents/ carers and paediatric health professionals in Yorkshire and the Humber using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews at Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
IRAS ID
272129
Contact name
Ailish Harrison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Children's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
NA, NA
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
This study aims to gain insight into the parent/carer experience of the journey to diagnosis for children who have Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) accessing tertiary care in the UK. The ARFID criteria for diagnosis was outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) in 2013. It was intended to minimize use of the other catch-all, underused feeding and eating diagnoses and aimed to provide a diagnosis that accurately describes the symptoms and behaviours of a specific group of people with eating and feeding disorders. ARFID is now a new diagnosis within the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision draft (ICD-11), under Mental, Behavioural or Neurodevelopmental Disorders, in the subsection Feeding or Eating Disorders. However, diagnosis is still in its infancy and many health professionals and other professionals are unaware of it. Therefore, this study also aims to explore paediatric health professionals understanding of ARFID diagnosis and treatment via online questionnaire.
Prevalence data is suggesting that ARFID may be as common as Anorexia Nervosa (AN) or Bulimia Nervosa (BN). However, compared to AN or BN, children experience a longer duration of illness before treatment presentation, suggesting delay in diagnosis compared to the other eating disorders. Individuals with ARFID often present to settings other than mental health clinics and parents report that the journey to diagnosis can often be long and difficult. With no guidelines or protocols for diagnosis or treatment, services are scrambling to meet the needs of this population in the context of a paucity of literature relating to the parent perspective. This research question would be explored via questionnaire and interview data from parents/carers of children with an ARFID diagnosis accessing Sheffield Children’s Hospital (SCH). Contact with parents/carers would be via post initially and one 90 minute face to face session at SCH.
REC name
London - Brent Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/1810
Date of REC Opinion
3 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion