Mental health articles

The primary-care hurdle of eating disorders

Epidemiological research from different European countries highlights how eating disorders are under-diagnosed in primary care. A number of different reasons seem to present potent barriers to early diagnosis and intervention. These include:

•patient delay in presenting their eating problems;

•doctor delay in diagnosing eating disorders at an early stage;

•communication difficulties between doctors and eating-disorder patients;

•attitudinal biases of general practitioners towards these patients;

•gender differences between general practitioners and eating-disorder patients; and

•inadequate interventions by general practitioners including referrals to other specialists.

It is important that all of these barriers are overcome in order to facilitate secondary prevention by early intervention.

Tags: disorders, eating disorders