The study aimed to investigate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the eating attitudes test (EAT-26) among female adolescents and young adults in Mainland China. This scale was administered to 396 female eating disorder patients and 406 noneating disorder healthy controls, in addition 35 healthy controls completed a retest after a 4-week intervals. Tests for reliability, convergent validity and receiver operating characteristic analysis were performed to detect the psychometric properties. The EAT-26 demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.822-0.922), test-retest reliability (interclass correlation coefficient = 0.817) and convergent validity(r = 0.450-0.750). The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that the cut-off 14 for anorexia nervosa and 15 for bulimia nervosa represented good compromises with approximate sensitivity (0.66-0.68) and specificity (0.85-0.86). Our findings provided evidence that the Chinese version of the EAT-26 was a psychometrically reliable and valid self-rating instrument for identifying people suffering from an eating disorder in Mainland China. A clinical cut-off range between 14 and 15 could be used, but caution should be exercised because of the low sensitivity of the tool. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

In the past 40 years, the prevalence of eating disorders (ED) in China has shown an increasing trend, leading to an urgent need to develop efficient treatment modes and methods. Since the beginning of the new century, the diagnosis, treatment, and research of ED in China have been under development. This article gives an introduction and commentary on the treatment modes, treatment methods and their applications in ED in China. There are two main treatment forms for ED until now, that is, inpatient treatment and outpatient treatment. Inpatient treatment is recommended as the first choice. Since 2008, clinical psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and family-based treatment (FBT), which are effective for pathological symptoms of ED, have been introduced into China and developed clinically. Group CBT and group DBT for patients with ED and group FBT for caregivers might be the most efficient psychotherapy in China nowadays. A multi-family FBT support group could be developed as the basic treatment of ED patients. Although these new types of psychotherapy have observed effectiveness in clinical application, the Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are rare and need to be developed.

Background The high cost of treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN) and lack of trained specialists have resulted in limited accessibility of effective treatment to patients with AN, which is particularly problematic in China. To increase the accessibility of evidence-based treatment and reduce the cost of treatment, this study aimed to explore the feasibility and efficacy of group cognitive behavior therapy (G-CBT) adapted from enhanced cognitive behavior therapy for eating disorders (CBT-E) in Chinese AN patients. Method A total of 78 patients with AN were assigned to G-CBT or individual outpatient treatment (IOT) and received three months of treatment for AN in each condition. Measures of eating pathology, depression and anxiety were administrated to both intervention groups at three time points: baseline, one month of treatment, and end of treatment; results were compared between groups and over time. Results There were 70 participants included in the final analysis. Both G-CBT and IOT groups showed significant improvement in eating pathology and associated psychopathology (ps < .001) over the course of treatment, but no significant difference in symptom improvement was found between the two groups (ps > .05). G-CBT resulted in additional significant improvement in ED psychopathology over the last two months of treatment, and its overall therapeutic effect was influenced by baseline weight and early symptom improvement. Conclusion Preliminary findings from this open label trial suggest that G-CBT adapted from CBT-E is feasible in an outpatient setting and as effective as IOT in facilitating weight regain and reducing psychopathology in Chinese AN patients with little evidence for the superiority of either intervention. Trial registration: The current study was registered at clinical trials.gov on September 23, 2018 (registration number NCT03684239). Plain English summary People with anorexia nervosa (AN) are known to be unmotivated for treatment and prone to relapse. Recovery from AN often needs intensive, long-term treatment from a specialized multidisciplinary team, which is not accessible for most people in China. Given the increasing incidence of AN and lack of eating disorder (ED) specialists in China, it is important to develop short-term cost-effective treatments for AN. In this study, we explored the feasibility and efficacy of group cognitive behavior therapy (G-CBT) adapted from enhanced cognitive behavior therapy (CBT-E) for people with AN from China. We found that G-CBT was as effective as individual outpatient treatment (IOT) typically provided to AN patients at the research site in facilitating weight regain, improving eating behaviors, and reducing ED and other symptoms. We also found that patients receiving G-CBT made more improvements in cognitive symptoms of the ED, which might help maintain treatment gains and prevent relapse in the long run. This potential long-term advantage of G-CBT needs to be verified in long-term follow-up.