Patients Receiving Inpatient Care for Eating Disorders Doubled During Pandemic

The number of patients receiving inpatient care for eating disorders per month doubled in May 2020, according to a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, OptumLabs, and the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia.

Findings were published this month on JAMA Network Open.

The study looked at deidentified data Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2020, for more than 3.2 million patients with outpatient or inpatient care and a primary diagnosis code for eating disorders, alcohol use disorders, depression, anxiety, and suicidality, or opioid use disorders. The number of patients receiving inpatient care for eating disorders each month remained at about 0.3 per 100,000. In May 2020, however, that figure doubled to 0.6—an increase observed across anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and other unspecified eating disorders. Increases in median length of inpatient stay and number of patients receiving outpatient care per month were also recorded in 2020.

The researchers said many aspects of the pandemic “plausibly intensified eating disorders” and may have promoted disordered eating behaviors among susceptible individuals.

“[O]besity was frequently cited as a risk factor for COVID severity; grocery shopping became more fraught in the early pandemic because of contagion concerns, new rules, and rituals; and many bought large quantities of foods to minimize shopping frequency or fear of shortage,” the researchers wrote. “Additionally, exercise may have become a focus of control or a compensatory mechanism for eating.”

The large increase in inpatient stays, meanwhile, may have been a result of patients delaying seeking care until symptoms required hospitalization.