Elsevier

Comprehensive Psychiatry

Volume 39, Issue 6, November–December 1998, Pages 392-399
Comprehensive Psychiatry

Familial factors in anorexia nervosa: A community-based study

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-440X(98)90053-0Get rights and content

Abstract

A group of 51 cases with teenage anorexia nervosa (AN; including a total population of cases from one birth cohort) were compared with a sex-, age-, and school-matched group of 51 cases on familial factors. The subjects were examined at age 16 and 21 years. In the first study, mothers of both groups were interviewed regarding physical and psychiatric disorders among first-degree relatives. In the followup study, the subjects were interviewed according to the same structured interview schedule. The data from these interviews were deidentified, and case notes were prepared by a clinician blind to group status. The randomly assorted case notes were then submitted to an experienced psychiatrist who also was blind to group status. There were more relatives with a history and symptoms suggestive of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) and major depression in the AN group. There was also significantly more death in first-degree relatives of anorexia nervosa cases. In respect to many axis I DSM-IV diagnoses, including eating disorders and substance abuse, there were no significant differences across groups. Instead we found PDD symptoms, major depression, and death in first-degree relatives to be important in the AN group.

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      2018, Comprehensive Psychiatry
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      Increasing attention has been recently devoted to detecting the shared vulnerability between Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) [1–3] upon the evidence of frequent AN comorbidity in ASD [4–7], leading authors to highlight a possible conception of AN as a neurodevelopmental disorder [8], besides propelling interest on the possible overlap between Eating Disorders (EDs) and ASD [1,8,9]. In a large Swedish cohort of AN individuals (“the Göteborg AN study”) [8,10–21], higher rates of ASD were reported with respect to healthy participants. However, most recent studies reported conflicting results, despite instruments employed to assess symptoms often differed among studies leading to difficulties in comparing data.

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    Supported by grants from the Swedish Medical Research Council (project no. K97-21x-11637-02B), the Wilhelm and Martina Lundgren Foundation, and the Goteborg Medical Society.

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