Eating Disorder Treatment Dropout: What Factors Influence Access to Specialty Care in an Underresourced Appalachian Region?

Appalachia is uniquely impacted by healthcare disparities. Outpatient dropout rates remain a significant barrier for individuals necessitating specialty eating disorder (ED) treatment. We explored factors impacting patient continuation in specialty outpatient care for EDs. Participants (N=138; 89.9% female) were patients with EDs attending specialty outpatient treatment in a geographically isolated, under-resourced Appalachian community. Patient dropout rate was 26.8%. Dropout rates did not significantly differ across any sociocultural factors except patient age and BMI; patients who discontinued were older and had higher BMIs at intake, perhaps due to longer duration of illness or treatment-related misconceptions. Implications and future directions are discussed.