Why Do Children With Eating Disorders Relapse After Hospitalization?

August 1, 2025 22

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that affect eating habits, health, and emotions, requiring timely treatment.

Why Do Children With Eating Disorders Relapse After Hospitalization?

Eating disorders impact over 5% of young people and rank among the deadliest mental health conditions (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Outpatient Therapy and Risk of Rehospitalization for Youth With Eating Disorders

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For those with public health insurance, accessing consistent treatment is often a major challenge. Many young patients end up trapped in a cycle of repeated hospitalizations without lasting progress.

Outpatient Therapy’s Role in Post-Hospital Eating Disorder Care

Researchers at UC San Francisco set out to explore whether this revolving door could be broken by providing structured outpatient therapy during the critical months following a patient’s first hospital stay.

They examined data from 920 California Medicaid enrollees ages 7 to 18 years old who had been hospitalized with an eating disorder.

These young patients received on average just two outpatient therapy sessions after leaving the hospital, and nearly half (45%) received none at all.

Therapy, when delivered, was provided by community-based clinicians rather than specialty clinics.

Those who received eight or more therapy sessions were 25 times less likely to be readmitted than those who received 3 or fewer sessions.

Outpatient providers don’t need to be specialists or experts in eating disorders to help young people with these conditions stay out of the hospital.

Millions in Savings: How Outpatient Therapy Can Transform Medicaid’s Eating Disorder Costs

California’s Medicaid program (Medi-Cal) would save more than $7 million annually in rehospitalizations alone if adolescents could access eight or more sessions of outpatient therapy after hospital discharge for eating disorders.

Hospitalization can be especially challenging for families on Medicaid.

“Caregivers are more likely to be single parents with less flexible work schedules and fewer financial resources to cover out-of-pocket expenses,” said first author Megan Mikhail, PhD.

“The findings suggest a modest amount of outpatient therapy from any type of provider can help break the cycle of repeat hospitalizations,” said senior author Erin Accurso, PhD.

Reference:

Outpatient Therapy and Risk of Rehospitalization for Youth With Eating Disorders – (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/doi/10.1542/peds.2025-070797/202644/Outpatient-Therapy-and-Risk-of-Rehospitalization?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

Source-Eurekalert