Prevalence of alimentary behavior disorders in adolescents of Malaga (Spain).

This paper estimates the prevalence of eating disorders (ED) in a sample of male and female adolescents of the Province of Malaga (Spain). The frequen cy of the subjects' symptomatic behaviours is given. Information provided b y the subjects themselves and by their parents is also taken into account. Method: Data collection took place during 1938 and 1939. The sample compris es 1,555 subjects (625 male and 930 female aged from 12 to 21 years) from 1 4 different public and private schools. The Questionnaire for Eating Disord er Diagnoses (Q-EDD; Mintz, O'Halloran, Mulholland and Schneider, 1997) was anonymously completed by the participants. A new version of the Q-EDD was also given to the parents for obtaining more information from them about th eir children. The 50-question Q-EDD operacionalizes eating disorder criteri a of the DSM-IV. Diagnoses are generated by a scoring manual that consists of flowchart decision rules. Subjects with ED are classified as anorexia ne rvosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN) and eating disorders not otherwise specifi ed (EDNOS). Subjects without ED are classified as symptomatic (with some sy mptoms of the disorders being diagnosed) and asymptomatic (responding negat ively to all eating disorder behaviours). Results: Most of the adolescents (69.1%) were classified as asymptomatic; 2 7.5% were symptomatic, although only 3.4% met all diagnostic criteria for E D. Females are four times more likely to have eating disorders than males ( Odds Ratio = 4.6). The pathology most frequently diagnosed was EDNOS (0.5% males, 3.9% females). The prevalence of AN was 0.5% in males and 0.4% in fe males. The prevalence of BN was 0.2% in males and 0.6% in females. These re sults are all comparable to those obtained in previous epidemiological stud ies, except for the prevalence of AN in males, which is higher in this work . These data suggest that ED, although predominantly a female complaint, is not exclusive of them. Further study on the possible increase of these dis orders is justified, particularly on AN in the male population. Finally the parents' reports showed a lower frequency of ED than the adolescents' self -reports.