The experience of healthcare professionals treating adolescents with eating disorders in psychiatric and pediatric inpatient units for adolescents: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVES

The recommended treatment for Eating Disorders (EDs) is multidisciplinary and multimodal. Nonetheless, the complex linkage of the different disciplines involved is not necessarily simple. We analyzed the experience of healthcare professionals faced with psychiatric and psychological symptoms in adolescents with EDs in two "multidisciplinary" inpatient units embedded predominantly in different paradigms - one pediatric and one psychiatric.

METHODS

Qualitative analysis of 20 healthcare staff members' interviews from different professional backgrounds working in inpatient units for EDs in Montreal (Canada) and Paris (France).

RESULTS

The "Complex patients" theme discusses the need for a global approach to the multiplicity of symptoms presented by these patients. "Management and its limits" describes the daily management of psychiatric symptoms in both units. "Psychiatry and Adolescent medicine: from opposition to collaboration" describes the different levels at which these disciplines work together and how this cooperation may be evolving.

CONCLUSIONS

The complex entanglement intrinsic in EDs of the patients' somatic, psychosocial, psychiatric, and adolescent problems requires collaboration between disciplines, but the modalities of this collaboration are multiple and evolve non-linearly in specialized treatment units. A multilevel approach must be offered, with the degree of collaboration (multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary) appropriate to the complexity of each adolescent's issues.

A prospectively randomized trial carried out by the German Hodgkin Study Group (GHSG) for elderly patients with advanced Hodgkin's disease comparing BEACOPP baseline and COPP-ABVD (study HD9elderly)

In contrast to younger patients, the prognosis of elderly patients with advanced Hodgkin's disease (HD) has not improved substantially over the last 20 years. We thus carried out a prospectively randomized study (HD9(elderly)) to compare the BEACOPP regimen in this setting against standard COPP-ABVD. Between February 1993 and 1998, 75 patients aged 66-75 years with newly diagnosed HD in advanced stages were recruited into the HD9 trial as a separate stratum (HD9(elderly)). Patients were assigned to eight alternating cycles of COPP and ABVD or eight cycles of BEACOPP in baseline doses. Radiotherapy was given to initial bulky or residual disease. In total, 68 of 75 registered patients were assessable: 26 were treated with COPP-ABVD and 42 with BEACOPP baseline. There were no significant differences between COPP-ABVD and BEACOPP in terms of complete remission (76%), overall survival (50%) and freedom from treatment failure (FFTF) (46%) at 5 years. At a median follow-up of 80 months, a total of 37 patients died: 14/26 patients (54%) treated with COPP-ABVD and 23/42 patients (55%) with BEACOPP. Two patients (8%) treated with COPP-ABVD and nine patients (21%) treated with BEACOPP died of acute toxicity. Hodgkin-specific FFTF at 5 years was 55% after COPP-ABVD and 74% after BEACOPP (P=0.13). Thus, there are no differences in survival between these regimens in elderly patients.