Clinical features of eating disorders in anxiety-depressive disorders.

Abstract

In the modern world, the number of patients with eating disorders (ED) is steadily increasing, among which about 90 % are women. The variety of symptoms, the frequency of comorbidity of the pathology with other disorders, the difficulty of qualifying the detected symptoms and syndromes are difficulties for timely diagnosis and adequate therapy of ED. It is known that symptoms related to eating behavior may be present in the structure of anxiety-depressive disorders. The aim of the study was to assess the symptoms of ED among patients with anxiety-depressive disorders. 147 patients with anxiety-depressive disorders were examined. The examined were divided into the main group of 82 men and a comparison group of 65 men. A clinical anamnestic, clinical psychopathological, psychodiagnostic study supplemented with psychometric scales was conducted. Among the examined, clinically significant symptoms of ED were found, among which the external orientation of eating behavior dominated. A significant part of the sample (40.2 % of the main group and 36.9 % of the comparison group) showed dissatisfaction with their own body image. Key words: anxiety, depression, anxiety-depressive disorders, eating behavior, eating disorders