Background Adolescents with severe restrictive eating disorders often require enteral feeding to provide lifesaving treatment. Nasogastric feeding (NG) is a method of enteral nutrition often used in inpatient settings to treat medical instability, to supplement poor oral intake or to increase nutritional intake. This systematic review sets out to describe current practice of NG in young people with eating disorders. Methods A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted by searching AMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases from 2000 to 2020. Inclusion terms were: enteral feeding by nasogastric tube, under 18 years, eating disorders, and primary research. Exclusion terms: psychiatric disorders other than eating disorders; non-primary research; no outcomes specific to NG feeding and participants over 18 years. Titles and abstracts were screened by all authors before reviewing full length articles. Quality assessment, including risk of bias, was conducted by all authors. Results Twenty-nine studies met the full criteria. 86% of studies were deemed high or medium risk of bias due to the type of study: 34.4% retrospective cohort and 10.3% RCT; 17.2% were qualitative. Studies identified 1) a wide range of refeeding regimes depending on country, settings, and the reason for initiation; 2) standard practice is to introduce Nasogastric feeds (NG) if medically unstable or oral intake alone is inadequate; 3) NG may enable greater initial weight gain due to increased caloric intake; 4) there are 3 main types of feeding regime: continuous, nocturnal and bolus; 5) complications included nasal irritation, epistaxis, electrolyte disturbance, distress and tube removal; 6) where NG is routinely implemented to increase total calorie intake, length of stay in hospital may be reduced; however where NG is implemented in correlation to severity of symptoms, it may be increased; 7) both medical and psychiatric wards most commonly report using NG in addition to oral intake. Conclusions NG feeding is a safe and efficacious method of increasing total calorie intake by either supplementing oral intake or continuously. There are currently no direct comparisons between continuous, nocturnal or bolus regimes, which may be used to direct future treatment for YP with ED.

BackgroundAdolescents with severe restrictive eating disorders often require enteral feeding to provide lifesaving treatment.Nasogastric feeding (NGF) is a method of enteral nutrition often used in inpatient settings to treat medical instability, to supplement minimal oral intake or to boost nutritional intake. This systematic review sets out to describe current practice for NGF. MethodsA systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted by searching AMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases from 2000-2020. Inclusion terms were: enteral feeding by nasogastric tube, under 18 years, eating disorders, and primary research. Exclusion terms: mental disorders other than eating disorders; non-primary research; no outcomes specific to NG feeding and over 18 years. Titles and abstracts were screened by all authors before reviewing full length articles. Quality assessment, including risk of bias, was conducted by all authors. Results29 studies met the full criteria. 86% of studies were deemed high or medium risk of bias due to the type of study: 34.4% retrospective cohort and 10.3% RCT; 17.2% were qualitative. Studies identified 1) a wide range of practices in different countries, settings, and the reason for initiation; 2) In the UK, standard practice is to introduce NGF if either oral intake is not met or patients are medically unstable; 3) NGF may enable greater initial weight gain due to increased caloric intake; 4) there are 3 main types of feeding regime: continuous, nocturnal and bolus; 5) high calorie feeds are not typically associated with increased risk of refeeding syndrome; 6) complications included nasal irritation, epistaxis, electrolyte disturbance, distress and tube removal; 7) length of stay in hospital is dependent on reason of initiating NGF; 8) psychiatric and medical wards differ in approach; 9) concurrent therapy is often used to facilitate NGF.ConclusionsNGF is currently often implemented in specialist settings where oral intake has been refused or insufficient, in hospital due to medical instability, nocturnally to supplement day-time oral intake, or continuously as standard protocol. Due to high risk of bias as a result of the nature of the studies conducted in adolescents with ED, recommendations for clinical practice cannot yet be justified.

BackgroundAdolescents with severe restrictive eating disorders often require enteral feeding to provide lifesaving treatment. Nasogastric feeding (NG) is a method of enteral nutrition often used in inpatient settings to treat medical instability, to supplement poor oral intake or to increase nutritional intake. This systematic review sets out to describe current practice of NG in young people with eating disorders.MethodsA systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted by searching AMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases from 2000–2020. Inclusion terms were: enteral feeding by nasogastric tube, under 18 years, eating disorders, and primary research. Exclusion terms: psychiatric disorders other than eating disorders; non-primary research; no outcomes specific to NG feeding and participants over 18 years. Titles and abstracts were screened by all authors before reviewing full length articles. Quality assessment, including risk of bias, was conducted by all authors.Results29 studies met the full criteria. 86% of studies were deemed high or medium risk of bias due to the type of study: 34.4% retrospective cohort and 10.3% RCT; 17.2% were qualitative. Studies identified 1) a wide range of refeeding regimes depending on country, settings, and the reason for initiation; 2) standard practice is to introduce Nasogastric feeds (NG) if medically unstable or oral intake alone is inadequate; 3) NG may enable greater initial weight gain due to increased caloric intake; 4) there are 3 main types of feeding regime: continuous, nocturnal and bolus; 5) complications included nasal irritation, epistaxis, electrolyte disturbance, distress and tube removal; 6) where NG is routinely implemented to increase total calorie intake, length of stay in hospital may be reduced; however where NG is implemented in correlation to severity of symptoms, it may be increased; 7) both medical and psychiatric wards most commonly report using NG in addition to oral intake.ConclusionsNG feeding is a safe and efficacious method of increasing total calorie intake by either supplementing oral intake or continuously. There are currently no direct comparisons between continuous, nocturnal or bolus regimes, which may be used to direct future treatment for YP with ED.

BackgroundAdolescents with severe restrictive eating disorders often require enteral feeding. Nasogastric feeding is occasionally used during hospitalisation to treat medical instability as a result of malnourishment, or in a specialist setting to supplement minimal oral intake by underweight patients. There is minimal guidance for clinicians to determine when nasogastric feeding should be implemented, how it should be provided and how to complement feeding with a nasogastric tube. This systematic review sets out to determine best practice for NG feeding.MethodsA systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted by searching AMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases from 2000-2020. Inclusion terms used were as follows: enteral feeding by nasogastric tube, under 18 years, eating disorders, and primary research. Exclusion terms: mental disorders other than eating disorders; non-primary research; no outcomes specific to NG feeding and over 18 years. Titles and abstracts were screened by all authors before reviewing full length articles.Results28 studies met the full criteria. 51.7% of studies were deemed high risk of bias due to the type of study: 37.9% retrospective cohort and 10.3% RCT; 17.2% were qualitative. Studies identified 1) 6-66% required NG feeding; 2) staff and young people understand its necessity but generally view it negatively; 3) there are 3 main types of feeding regime: continuous, nocturnal and bolus; 4) high calorie feeds are not associated with increased risk of refeeding syndrome; 5) Common complications were nasal irritation, epistaxis, electrolyte disturbance, distress and tube removal; 6) length of stay in hospital may be longer in patients requiring NG feeding; 7) psychiatric and medical wards differ in approach; 8) concurrent therapy reduces NG use and aids recovery.ConclusionsAll studies which reviewed the use of NG over a period of time found that it had increased significantly in recent years. Due to the possibility of patient removal of the tube, it may be beneficial in practice to deliver feeds using a bolus regime which has been tailored to the individual caloric needs of the patient. This review enables cautious recommendations to be made and highlights the lack of high-quality evidence around the use of NG feeding in eating disordered young people.

Background Adolescents with severe restrictive eating disorders often require enteral feeding. Nasogastric feeding is occasionally used during hospitalisation to treat medical instability as a result of malnourishment, or in a specialist setting to supplement minimal oral intake by underweight patients. There is minimal guidance for clinicians to determine when nasogastric feeding should be implemented, how it should be provided and how to complement feeding with a nasogastric tube. This systematic review sets out to determine best practice for NG feeding. Methods A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted by searching AMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases from 2000-2020. Inclusion terms used were as follows: enteral feeding by nasogastric tube, under 18 years, eating disorders, and primary research. Exclusion terms: mental disorders other than eating disorders; non-primary research; no outcomes speci c to NG feeding and over 18 years. Titles and abstracts were screened by all authors before reviewing full length articles. Results 28 studies met the full criteria. 51.7% of studies were deemed high risk of bias due to the type of study: 37.9% retrospective cohort and 10.3% RCT; 17.2% were qualitative. Studies identi ed 1) 6-66% required NG feeding; 2) staff and young people understand its necessity but generally view it negatively; 3) there are 3 main types of feeding regime: continuous, nocturnal and bolus; 4) high calorie feeds are not associated with increased risk of refeeding syndrome; 5) Common complications were nasal irritation, epistaxis, electrolyte disturbance, distress and tube removal; 6) length of stay in hospital may be longer in patients requiring NG feeding; 7) psychiatric and medical wards differ in approach; 8) concurrent therapy reduces NG use and aids recovery. Conclusions All studies which reviewed the use of NG over a period of time found that it had increased signi cantly in recent years. Due to the possibility of patient removal of the tube, it may be bene cial in practice to deliver feeds using a bolus regime which has been tailored to the individual caloric needs of the patient. This review enables cautious recommendations to be made and highlights the lack of high-quality evidence around the use of NG feeding in eating disordered young people.