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Several investigators have documented that depressive and anxiety disorders are frequently present in individuals with eating disorders. This study reports on three aspects of the relationship between depressive and anxiety disorders in eating disorder patients. Eating‐disordered subjects, as a group, were not significantly different in their lifetime or concurrent rates of depressive or anxiety disorders, although anorectics were characterized by significantly more frequent lifetime rates of depressive than anxiety disorders. Bulimic‐anorectics were significantly more likely than bulimics to co‐present with a major depressive disorder. There were no significant group differences in the concurrent rates of anxiety disorders between bulimic, anorectic, and bulimic‐anorectic subjects. Bulimic‐anorectics, however, were significantly more likely than anorectic subjects to qualify for obsessive‐compulsive disorder at some point in their lifetime. Thus, with regard to Axis I co‐morbidity, bulimic‐anorectics would appear to be the most pathological of the eating disorder subgroups.

No abstract