Home Treatment for Eating Disorders

Within the field of mental disorders, over the last decades, specific home treatment programs have been developed and implemented successfully as an alternative to inpatient treatment. These home treatment programs can be subdivided into two general approaches: acute outpatient intervention to prevent hospital admission and stepped-care intervention to shorten hospital stays. Both approaches have already been performed successfully in adolescent anorexia nervosa, but not in other eating disorders. The first aim of this chapter is to provide a rationale for implementing home treatment settings for patients with eating disorders. Secondly, it aims at illustrating home treatment programs specifically developed for patients with adolescent anorexia nervosa. Two programs will be presented in detail, including their concepts, management, and schedules. Furthermore, data of pilot studies examining the effectiveness of these programs will be depicted, showing promising effects. To summarize, this chapter shows that home treatment seems to be a promising treatment approach for adolescent anorexia nervosa, both to prevent hospital admission when applied within an outpatient setting and to shorten hospital stays after initial admission. However, data are preliminary and scarce. In addition to the urgent need of confirming the existing pilot data on the effectiveness of home treatment in adolescent anorexia nervosa, future research should focus on the implementation of home treatment programs to the broader field of eating disorders.