Prevalence of Eating Disorders in Italy: A Survey on a Sample of 16-Year-Old Female Students

Abstract

Background: To date, the number of epidemiological studies on eating disorders (ED) in Italy and in other Mediterranean countries is still limited. This study evaluated the eating attitudes and the prevalence of eating disorders in a sample of 359 16-year-old Italian schoolgirls. Methods: The study followed a two-stage procedure consisting in a first screening stage followed by clinical interviews. A third stage consisting in a case register study and a 1-year follow-up confirmed the importance of evaluating subjects who chose not to participate in the survey. Results: Prevalence rates found in our sample are consistent with those of other prevalence studies conducted on adolescent girls: 0% for anorexia nervosa, 0.5% for bulimia nervosa and 3.7% for ED not otherwise specified. Also some important features associated with the presence of an ED appeared to be present in Italian female students, as in Anglo-Saxon populations: the tendency towards denial that led to an overrepresentation of ED among nonrespondents, and the ascertainment that just a small proportion of people seeks help for ED. The Italian sample reported higher scores on eating attitudes test compared to Anglo-Saxon samples. Conclusions: No evidence of different rates of ED was found in our Italian sample in comparison with non-Mediterranean samples. The importance of using a two-stage design and a third control stage in prevalence studies is emphasized by our findings.

The epidemiology of eating disorders in six European countries: Results of the ESEMeD-WMH project

“…Past studies which included the adolescent population found higher prevalence for bulimia nervosa than in our study: from 1.1%, in a 15-17 years old Italian sample of school-aged students (Santonastaso et al, 1996), to 1.2% in Sweden (Råstam et al, 1989). However, prevalence similar, or lower than ours, have also been reported in samples including adolescent respondents: from 0.2% among 2544 students aged 13-18 in the USA (Whitaker et al, 1990), to 0.5% in Hong-Kong (N = 1020 students, 17-24 years old) (Lee, 1993).…”

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