Differences in severity of eating disorder symptoms between adults with depression and adults with anxiety.

We examined differences in severity of ED symptoms among adults with either, both, or neither depression and anxiety. METHODS: Volunteers (N = 3,780) to the project implicit mental health website ( https://implicit.harvard.edu/ ) self-reported their ED status (current ED: n = 374, past ED: n = 436; no ED: n = 2,970), their current depression/anxiety status, and their ED symptoms (using the Eating Attitudes Test). ANOVAs with post hoc comparisons were used to examine relationships between ED symptoms and comorbid depression/anxiety status among currently ill, recovered, and never ill individuals. RESULTS: Participants without comorbidities had the least and participants with both comorbidities had the most severe ED symptoms (p = .021). Participants with anxiety alone had more severe ED symptoms relative to those with depression alone across groups (current ED: p = .024; past ED: p = .019; no EDs: p = .021). DISCUSSION: These findings demonstrate, in contrast with an earlier study among youth with EDs (Hughes et al., 2013), that comorbid anxiety may be linked with more severe ED symptoms relative to comorbid depression. It is possible that anxiety serves as a maintaining factor for ED symptoms such that dieting and other ED-related behaviors may function to modulate symptoms of anxiety. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III, case-control analytic study. PMID: 32592138 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Eating and weight disorders : EWD - Category: Eating Disorders & Weight Management Authors: Tags: Eat Weight Disord Source Type: research