The significance of subgroups of bulimia and anorexia nervosa: Lifetime frequency of psychiatric disorders

By a standardized interview DSM-III lifetime diagnoses were assessed in 91 eating disorders patients who were divided in four subgroups. Anorectic patients with bulimic symptoms and normal-weight bulimic patients with and without a history of anorexia nervosa had a similar history of additional psychiatric diagnoses. In general, restricting anorexics showed lower lifetime rates of psychiatric disorders than patients with bulimic symptomatology. Minor affective disorders, however, were equally distributed across all four groups.