Interview‐based assessment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID): A pilot study evaluating an ARFID module for the Eating Disorder Examination

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nAlthough avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) has been included as a new diagnostic entity of childhood feeding and eating disorders, there is a lack of measures to reliably and validly assess ARFID. In addition, virtually nothing is known about clinical characteristics of ARFID in nonclinical samples.\n\n\nMETHOD\nThe present study presents the development and validation of an ARFID module for the child and parent version of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) in a nonclinical sample of N\u2009=\u200939 children between 8 and 13\u2009years with underweight and/or restrictive eating behaviors. For evaluating the ARFID module s reliability, the convergence of diagnoses between two independent raters and between the child and parent module was determined. The module s validity was evaluated based on the full-length child version of the EDE, a 24\u2009h food record, parent-reported psychosocial functioning and self-reported quality of life, and objective anthropometric measures.\n\n\nRESULTS\nIn total, n\u2009=\u20097 children received an ARFID diagnosis. The ARFID module showed high interrater reliability, especially for the parent version, and high convergence between child and parent report. Evidence for the module s convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity was provided. Specifically, children with versus without ARFID reported significantly less macro- and micronutrient intake and were more likely to be underweight.\n\n\nDISCUSSION\nThis pilot study indicates the child and parent version of the EDE ARFID module to be promising for diagnosing ARFID in a structured way but still necessitates a validation in a larger clinical and community-based sample.