Screening Obese Adolescents for Binge Eating Disorder in Primary Care: The Adolescent Binge Eating Scale.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the performance of a simple and developmentally appropriate 10-item questionnaire (Adolescent Binge Eating Scale) for the prediction of binge eating disorder (BED) diagnosis in adolescents seen for obesity. STUDY DESIGN: We evaluated the performance of the questionnaire in comparison with a clinical interview, in a population of adolescents being seen for obesity. The ?2 or Fisher exact tests were used. RESULTS: There were 94 adolescents aged 12-18 years (59.6% girls) who completed the study. The questionnaire demonstrated a good association with the clinical interview and distinguished different levels of risk for having a BED: participants who responded positively to questions 1 or 2 and had more than 6 positive answers to the 8 additional questions had a high risk of subclinical and clinical BED (83.3%); participants with 3 or fewer positive answers had a low risk of clinical BED (4%). CONCLUSIONS: The Adolescent Binge Eating Scale questionnaire is a potential screening tool to identify adolescents with obesity at high risk of BED and guide referral to a specialist to clarify the diagnosis and provide adequate care.

Is there a role for primary care physicians' screening of excessive weight and eating concerns in adolescence?

OBJECTIVES: To determine the extent to which adolescents with excessive weight concerns and eating concerns are in contact with primary care physicians and could thus be identified in primary care. STUDY DESIGN: A representative sample of 7548 (16 to 20 years old) students completed a self-administered questionnaire on health-related topics (2002 Swiss Multicenter Adolescent Health Survey). Adolescents with excessive weight and eating concerns were compared with control subjects for frequency of somatic complaints and primary care visits in the past year. Analyses were stratified by sex. Logistic regression was used to adjust for confounders. RESULTS: Excessive weight and eating concerns were frequent in adolescents, particularly in girls (girls, 13.9%; boys, 1.6%). Adolescents with these concerns reported more frequent somatic complaints compared with their peers. Nearly 80% of them were in contact with a primary care physician at least once a year. CONCLUSION: Primary care physicians are in contact with adolescents who have excessive weight and eating concerns. Identification of these concerns should be encouraged for appropriate management.