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The comorbidity of personality disorders in eating disorders: a meta-analysis

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The present meta-analysis summarized the proportion of comorbid personality disorders (PDs) in patients with anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN), respectively, and examined possible moderating variables.

Methods

A search of the databases PsychINFO, Embase, and Medline for the period 1980–2016 identified 87 studies from 18 different countries.

Results

The mean proportion of PDs among patients with any type of eating disorder (ED) was .52 compared to .09 in healthy controls. There were no statistically significant differences between AN (.49) and BN (.54) in proportions of any PD or PD clusters except for obsessive-compulsive PD (.23 vs .12 in AN and BN, respectively).

Conclusions

Both ED diagnoses had a similar comorbidity profile with a high prevalence of borderline and avoidant PDs. Moderator analyses conducted for any ED and any PD yielded significant differences for diagnostic systems with respect to EDs, method for assessing PD as well as patient weight and age.

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Correspondence to Monica Martinussen.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Since this is a meta-analysis, informed consent statement was not obtained. No primary data were collected from participants.

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Martinussen, M., Friborg, O., Schmierer, P. et al. The comorbidity of personality disorders in eating disorders: a meta-analysis. Eat Weight Disord 22, 201–209 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-016-0345-x

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