title: Eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder: A dimensional approach to purported relations.
abstract: The purpose of this research was to investigate the specificity of purported relations between symptoms of eating disorders (ED) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Whereas most research has focused on diagnostic comorbidity or between-groups analyses, this study took a dimensional approach to investigate specific relations among symptoms of anorexia, bulimia, and OCD, as well as panic, depression, and general distress in a student sample (N=465). Results were that all symptoms showed significant zero-order correlations, including all ED-OCD pairings. After removing general distress variance, however, none of three OCD scales significantly predicted anorexia; only compulsive washing among OCD scales significantly predicted bulimia. Hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated that panic and depression out-performed OCD in predicting bulimia symptoms. Overall, symptoms of ED and OCD did not show unique relations at the level of core dimensions of each construct. A possible link between bulimia and compulsive washing is worth further study.
authors.affiliation: 311 Psychology-Computer Science Building, Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, United States. kevinwu@niu.edu
authors.forename: Kevin D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D002032:Bulimia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D015897:Comorbidity; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires