Examining a staging model for anorexia nervosa: empirical exploration of a four stage model of severity
Open accessAbstract
An illness staging model for anorexia nervosa (AN) has received increasing attention, but assessing the merits of this concept is dependent on empirically examining a model in clinical samples. Building on preliminary findings regarding the reliability and validity of the Clinician Administered Staging Instrument for Anorexia Nervosa (CASIAN), the current study explores operationalising CASIAN severity scores into stages and assesses their relationship with other clinical features. In women with DSM-IV-R AN and sub-threshold AN (all met AN criteria using DSM 5), receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis ( n = 67) assessed the relationship between the sensitivity and specificity of each stage of the CASIAN. Thereafter chi-square and post-hoc adjusted residual analysis provided a preliminary assessment of the validity of the stages comparing the relationship between stage and treatment intensity and AN sub-types, and explored movement between stages after six months (Time 3) in a larger cohort ( n = 171). The CASIAN significantly distinguished between milder stages of illness (Stage 1 and 2) versus more severe stages of illness (Stages 3 and 4), and approached statistical significance in distinguishing each of the four stages from one other. CASIAN Stages were significantly associated with treatment modality and primary diagnosis, and CASIAN Stage at Time 1 was significantly associated with Stage at 6 month follow-up. Provisional support is provided for a staging model in AN. Larger studies with longer follow-up of cases are now needed to replicate and extend these findings and evaluate the overall utility of staging as well as optimal staging models.
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Maguire, S., Surgenor, L. J., Le Grange, D., Lacey, H., Crosby, R. D., Engel, S. G., Fromholtz, K. M., Bamford, B., & Touyz, S.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- University of Otago (NZ)
- St George's, University of London (GB)
- University of North Dakota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Maguire, Sarah
- Venue
- Journal of Eating Disorders
- Published
- 2017-11-27
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 41-41
- ISSN
- 2050-2974 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5702958
- OpenAlex
- W2757818175
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 1.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Eating Disorders (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- St George's Online Research Archive (St George's University of London) (acceptedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- No funding (NA)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues
- Keywords
- anorexia nervosa, disease severity assessment, treatment intensity, anorexia nervosa subtypes, sensitivity and specificity
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