Comorbidity of obsessive compulsive disorder in patients with eating disorders.
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the prevalence of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) among patients with eating disorders (ED).


METHODS
66 female inpatients who met the DSM-IV criteria for anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN) participated in the study. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM III-R diagnoses (SCID), the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), the revised 90-item Symptom-Checklist (SCL-90-R), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) were carried out.


RESULTS
Twelve patients (18.2%) met the DSM-III-R criteria for lifetime OCD: 7 had a current OCD and 5 had a past history of OCD. These patients had significantly higher (more pathological) mean scores on the EDI and the SCL-90-R total scales. Analyses of the EDI subscales revealed significantly higher scores for ineffectiveness, perfectionism, interoceptive awareness, and maturity fears. As expected, analyses of the SCL-90-R subscales revealed significantly higher scores for OCD. In addition, there was a trend towards higher somatization scores in patients with comorbid OCD. We could not find any significant differences in the BDI and the TAS total scores. In addition, patients with comorbid OCD showed a significantly higher lifetime prevalence of bipolar disorder, simple phobia, and somatoform disorders.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results confirm previous reports of a strong association between ED and OCD and suggest that the prevalence of OCD may be correlated with a higher severity of the eating disorder and general psychopathological parameters.
Department of General Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
C
C
Lennkh
A
A
Strnad
U
U
Bailer
D
D
Biener
G
G
Fodor
M
M
de Zwaan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001317:Austria; D002032:Bulimia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010343:Patient Admission