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Family vs Individual Treatment for Children With Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Family vs Individual Treatment for Children With Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Lock, J., Matheson, B., Jo, B., Bohon, C., Datta, N., Whyte, A., Boyce, H., Gurcan, H. Y., Cogburn, A. E., Kim, B. 2026

Abstract

To examine the comparative efficacy of Family-based Treatment for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (FBT-ARFID) to individual Psychoeducational Motivational Therapy (PMT) for underweight children with ARFID between the ages of 6 and 12 years of age. The main outcome evaluated was the difference between groups on change in percent estimated body weight (%EBW) from baseline (BL) to end of treatment (EOT).Ninety-eight children with ARFID were randomized to 14 sessions over 4 months of telehealth FBT-ARFID or PMT. Assessments of weight/height, eating-related cognitions, and behaviors associated with ARFID were collected online at BL, 1 month, 2 months, and EOT by assessors masked to treatment condition.FBT-ARFID was superior to PMT at the EOT in promoting increased %EBW. There were no differences between groups on improvements in overall severity of ARFID symptoms or other related ARFID symptoms; however, BL severity of ARFID symptoms moderated the effect, with children who were most symptomatic improving significantly more in FBT-ARFID than in PMT (exploratory analyses).FBT-ARFID is superior to PMT for promoting weight gain in low-weight children with ARFID, especially for those children with greater severity of ARFID symptoms.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jaac.2026.04.007

View details for PubMedID 42019720