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What is avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder?

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a feeding and eating disorder characterized by avoidance or restriction of food intake, resulting in clinically significant failure to meet requirements for nutrition or insufficient energy consumption through oral intake of food. The prevalence of ARFID is estimated to be 1.5%.

What does ARFID look like?

Risk Factors

  • Anxiety disorders
  • Autism spectrum disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Intellectual disability
  • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
  • Children of mothers with eating disorders
  • History of gastrointestinal issues, gastroesophageal reflux, and vomiting

Differential Diagnosis

  • Other medical conditions
  • Specific neurological/neuromuscular, structural, or congenital disorders and conditions associated with feeding difficulties
  • Reactive attachment disorder
  • Autism spectrum disorder
  • Specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, other anxiety disorders
  • Anorexia nervosa
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Major depressive disorder
  • Schizophrenia spectrum disorders
  • Factitious disorder or factitious disorder imposed on another

How is ARFID treated?

  • Psychoeducation
  • Family therapy
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

References

[1] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA.

[2] Boyd, M. A. (2019). Psychiatric & mental health nursing for Canadian practice. Wolters Kluwer.

[3] Townsend, M. C. (2015). Psychiatric mental health nursing. F.A. Davis.