Maria Råstam Bergström
About our researcher Maria Råstam Bergström
About Maria Råstam Bergström
Maria Råstam Bergström, MD, PhD, Prof.em. in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Lund University, is Senior Professor at the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology, Gillberg Centre, University of Gothenburg and Senior Researcher at the Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University. She specialized in Child and adolescent psychiatry and in General psychiatry.
Research interests
Her research area is the clinically significant eating disorders, esp. anorexia nervosa and ARFID, as well as autism spectrum and attention disorders, their comorbidity and course in a life perspective, using epidemiological methods followed by long-term follow-ups. Other projects are rooted in everyday clinical practice and study the natural course of child psychiatric disorders with the aim of improving treatment interventions. The focus is on neurodevelopmental disabling symptoms in social skills, attention, impulsivity, behaviour, mood, and eating.
She has been the project leader for the internationally known population-based 30-years follow-up study on anorexia nervosa in Gothenburg, which explored the prevalence, risk factors, comorbidity, and outcome of anorexia nervosa (in recent years senior researcher/co-author).
She has published over 170 peer-review articles in international journals, and is highly cited, with an h-index of 59 and more than 14,600 citations as of June 2024. She has supervised 12 successful PhD-students, 4 as main supervisor.
She is the PI of the ongoing study "Avoidance/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) in preschool children". The project investigates the prevalence of ARFID in young children (BVC cohort) and their treatment (FBH, Uppsala). GNC researchers, in collaboration with the Japan Environment and Children's Study, JECS, have developed a parent-reported screening instrument for ARFID, and reported 1.3 % prevalence in a birth cohort of nearly 4,000 4-7-year-old children. We have now further developed the ARFID-Brief Screener (ARFID-BS), using it in connection with the 2.5- and 4-year routine check-up at the child health centers in an area in Västra Götaland. A total of 63 out of 670 children screened positive for current ARFID (n=29) or previous ARFID (n=14), and a further 20 had eating problems at a less severe level. ARFID-BS has been validated against the clinical interview PARDI (Pica, ARFID, and Rumination Disorder Interview). The data are currently being analysed.
Funding
- The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden)
- The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet)
- The Ulf Lundahl Memorial Fund
- The Susanne Hobohm Foundation
- ALF Grants, Region Skåne (ALF-medel, Region Skåne)
- ALF Grants, Region Västra Götaland (ALF-medel, Region Västra Götaland)
- Swedish Inheritance Fund (Allmänna Arvsfonden)
- WM Lundgren’s Research Fund