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Eating disorders in adolescents – an initial diagnose in general physician practice

Irena Białokoz‑Kalinowska, Karolina Kierus, Janina Piotrowska‑Jastrzębska
Affiliation and address for correspondence
PEDIATR MED RODZ Vol 8 Numer 4, p. 298-303
Abstract

Nowadays the increasing prevalence of eating disorders in adolescents urges general physicians to faced this problem in their daily practice more often than it used to be before. It is well known that early identification of the risk group of eating disorders and referring such patients to the further confirmation of the initial diagnose to the specialist with subsequent early introduction of the psychological and psychiatric therapy constitutes the key point of good prognosis. That’s why the role of the general physician can not be overestimated. The confirmation of the diagnoses belongs to the psychiatrist’s competency, however the initial diagnose is purely the general practitioner’s task. This is very difficult role because the patients quite often are conceal ‑ ing symptoms of the disease and what’s more confusing, they are denying the fact of their existence. Even, if it happened that the patients report some complains, their symptoms are often non ‑ specific as well as the abnormality in the physical examination are. Therefore there is a great need for establishing the screening tools – universal, reliable, easy and time ‑ saving methods for eating disorders diagnosis in the general practitioner’s office. Such methods were elaborated and used in the USA settings with the positive outcome. The aim of this paper is to present the most popular and wide used screening methods for eating disorders in the adolescents with the suggestion to incorporate them to the Polish general physicians’ practices.

Keywords
eating disorders, diagnostic criteria, adolescents, screening methods, patient’s examination

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