LAXATIVE WITHDRAWAL AND ANXIETY IN BULIMIA-NERVOSA

Symptoms of anxiety can be prominent during treatment of bulimia nervo sa. Our experience is that bulimics who abuse laxatives have the most prominent symptoms of anxiety. We conducted ratings of anxiety in 23 b ulimics who purge with laxatives and 17 who purge by vomiting. We foun d that the laxative-abusing group had higher levels of state but not t rait anxiety and that they were more likely to be treated with medicat ion for anxiety during hospitalization. These data suggest an associat ion between laxatives and anxiety in bulimia nervosa. (C) 1995 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.