title: Brief report: psychological characteristics of less severe forms of eating disorders: an epidemiological study among 259 female adolescents.
abstract: We screened a sample of 259 female students, aged 17-20 years old, by means of the Eating Disorder Inventory 2 (EDI 2) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Those students identified to be at risk for an eating disorder underwent a semi-structured interview to provide a diagnosis according to DSM-IV criteria. We also considered the prevalence of "not full-blown diagnosis". We found two cases of full-syndrome (0.77%), both bulimics, 9 partial-syndrome bulimia nervosa (3.47%) and 1 of partial-syndrome binge eating disorder (0.38%). Moreover, 18 (6.94%) girls met the criteria for subclinical-syndrome, of which the majority was subclinical anorexia (5.79%). We did not find statistically relevant differences between the anorexic and the bulimic samples on the psychological characteristics measured by the EDI 2 subscales. These findings suggest the hypothesis that anorexia and bulimia could have the same psychopathological core and bulimia could be considered as a "failed" anorexia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Naples, SUN, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy. paolo.cotrufo@unina2.it
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cotrufo
authors.forename: Augusto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gnisci
authors.forename: Immacolata
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Caputo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D002032:Bulimia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology