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Examining day hospital treatment outcomes for sexual minority patients with eating disorders
Author(s) -
Donahue Joseph M.,
DeBenedetto Anthony M.,
Wierenga Christina E.,
Kaye Walter H.,
Brown Tiffany A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/eat.23362
Subject(s) - day hospital , eating disorders , day treatment , psychology , psychiatry , partial hospitalization , clinical psychology , medicine , mental health
Objective Epidemiological data support that sexual minorities (SM) report higher levels of eating pathology. Theories suggest these disparities exist due to stressors specific to belonging to a minority group; however, few studies have specifically explored differences between SM and heterosexual individuals in clinical eating disorder samples. Thus, the present study compared SM and heterosexual patients with eating disorders on demographic characteristics and eating disorder and psychological outcomes during day hospital treatment. Method Patients ( N = 389) completed surveys of eating pathology, mood, anxiety, and skills use at treatment admission, 1‐month post‐admission, discharge, and 6‐month follow‐up. Overall, 19.8% of patients ( n = 79) identified as SM, while 8.0% ( n = 32) reported not identifying with any sexual orientation. SM were more likely to present across genders (17.7% of females, 24.2% of males, 33.3% of transgender patients, and 87.5% of nonbinary patients). Results SM patients were significantly more likely to endorse major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and self‐harm at admission than their heterosexual counterparts. Multilevel models demonstrated that across time, SM patients demonstrated greater eating pathology, emotion dysregulation, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. Significant interactions between sexual orientation and time were found for eating pathology and emotion dysregulation, such that although SM patients started treatment with higher scores, they improved at a faster rate compared to heterosexual patients. Discussion Consistent with minority stress theory, SM patients report greater overall eating disorder and comorbid symptoms. Importantly, results do not support that there appear to be significant disparities in treatment outcome for SM patients in this sample of day hospital patients.