Amid a mental health crisis impacting the country’s young people, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco may have found a way to break the cycle of hospitalizations for eating disorders in youth — more therapy.
A new study led by researchers at UCSF shows that youths who receive more than eight therapy sessions after being hospitalized for an eating disorder are 25 times less likely to be rehospitalized than their peers who receive fewer than four sessions.
And providers who conduct the therapy don’t have to have any specialty or expertise in eating disorder treatment to see the impact of the sessions, the study found.
“A modest amount of outpatient therapy from any type of provider can help break the cycle of repeat hospitalizations,” said Erin Accurso, clinical director at UCSF’s Eating Disorder Program and one of the study’s authors.
More treatment could also save more than $7 million per year for the Medi-Cal program because of the reductions in rehospitalizations, the study said.
Eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness, and the prevalence of the disease in youth has risen over the last decade, according to a study from Stanford Medicine.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitalizations related to eating disorders increased — with more than 5% of youth now affected, according to UCSF.
UCSF researchers used data from 920 youths hospitalized for an eating disorder between the ages of 7 and 18 enrolled in Medi-Cal in the study.
Youths who are enrolled in Medi-Cal typically have a harder time accessing care compared to their peers on private insurance because of fewer financial resources and schedules that are not always flexible enough, according to Megan Mikhail, one of the study’s authors.
With President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicaid, Accurso said she worries about what that means for treatments that serve those with conditions like eating disorders.
“It’s already such a challenge,” Accurso said. “Lack of access to care, that lack of access is really costly.”
The cuts, recently signed by Trump as part of the federal budget, are set to cut Medicaid spending by more than $910 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by KFF.
According to an estimate from state health officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom, that could mean more than 3.4 million residents in California would lose health coverage.
Aug. 1: A previous version of this story said youths who receive more than eight therapy sessions after being hospitalized for an eating disorder are 25% less likely to be rehospitalized than their peers who receive fewer than four sessions. The actual comparison is 25 times less likely.
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