EATING DISORDERS AND ANTECEDENT ANXIETY DISORDERS - A CONTROLLED-STUDY

We compared the prevalence and age of onset of adult and childhood anx iety disorders relative to the primary diagnosis in 68 women with anor exia nervosa (AN), 116 women with bulimia nervosa (BN), 56 women with major depression with no eating disorder (MD) and 98 randomly selected controls (RC) in order to determine whether antecedent anxiety disord ers are plausible risk factors for AN and BN. Comorbid anxiety disorde rs were common in all three clinical groups (AN, 60%; BN, 57%; MD, 48% ). In 90% of AN women, 94% of BN women and 71% of MD women, anxiety di sorders preceded the current primary condition (P=0.01), although pani c disorder tended to develop after the onset of AN, BN or MD. In multi variate logistic regressions, the odds ratios (ORs) for overanxious di sorder (OR=13.4) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OR=11.8) were sign ificantly elevated for AN. The ORs for overanxious disorder and social phobia were significantly elevated for BN (OROAD=4.9; ORSP=15.5) and MD (OROAD=6.1; ORSP=6.4). These data suggest that certain anxiety diso rders are non-specific risk factors for later affective and eating dis orders, and others may represent more specific antecedent risk factors .