Disordered Eating in Metabolic Patients: Examining Patient-Provider Dialogue

Sara D. Pickett, BS (Advisor: Paige Roberts, MS)

Introduction: Disordered eating behaviors and attitudes (DEBAs) are unhealthy practices involving food that may not meet the criteria for an eating disorder. Many patients with inborn errors of metabolism are prescribed restrictive diets as treatment. While restrictive dieting is a DEBA in the general population, it is unclear when restrictive dieting becomes a clinically concerning DEBA in this unique patient population, and there are few studies researching this.

Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive study surveyed metabolic providers, including geneticists, genetic counselors, and dietitians, who have seen at least one metabolic patient in the last year. Spearman correlation, Mann-Whitney U, Fisher’s exact, and Kruskal-Wallis tests and a mixed effects ordinal logistic regression model were utilized for quantitative analysis.

Results: Overall, 69 participants were included in the study, with the majority selecting that conversations about DEBAs occur once every few months (n = 28, 51.8%). Most respondents reported feeling unknowledgeable about disordered eating (n = 39, 56.5%) with self-reported knowledge being significantly higher in the dietitian group (p = 0.0155). The amount of disordered eating education was not significantly different between provider groups (p = 0.0616). Those with education post-training were associated with higher self-reported knowledge (p = 0.0039) and self-reported comfort (p = 0.0273).

Conclusions: Metabolic providers lack knowledge of disordered eating and are infrequently discussing the topic with their patients. Dietitians self-report higher knowledge, and other metabolic providers suggest this topic falls under dietitian scope of practice, yet dietitians report lack of training on this subject matter. Disordered eating training for metabolic providers could lead to more conversations on the topic, that in turn may lead to increased rates of DEBA recognition and treatment.

Advisory Committee:

• Paige Roberts, MS, Chair
• Megan Morand, MS, CGC
• Megan Choates, MS, CGC
• Kate Richardson, MS CGC
• David Rodriguez- Buritica, MD
• Danielle Vice, MS

Join via Microsoft Teams (Please contact Ms. Picket for her Teams meeting info.)