Lesson 1: Clinical Disorders - Part A

Description

A small five year-old boy was admitted to hospital for nutritional anemia, the cause of which appeared to be his ingestion of paint, plaster, dirt, wood, and paste. He began adding non-food items to his diet at 19 months of age when he ingested lighter fluid. The patient came from a poor welfare family – his parents were young, immature, and dependent. He was the result of the unplanned pregnancy to a 16 year-old mother. Although his mother began eating dirt when she was pregnant, the pregnancy itself was uneventful. His father periodically used drugs and alcohol.

Diagnosis

The eating of non-nutritive non-food items can be seen in other disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and Klein-Levin syndrome. When there are no other symptoms of such disorders, a diagnosis of pica is made. Pica is often associated with a common history in the mother and low socioeconomic status – much like this case. The DSM diagnosis for Axis I is pica.