Family psychiatric morbidity in eating disorders.

This study examines the family psychiatric histories of 115 subjects with a DSM-III R diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN), seen consecutively in an outpatient eating disorder unit. Patients were divided into subgroups based on the current literature. A higher incidence of psychiatric disorders was found in the relatives of the subjects with AN binge eating/purging type and BN without a previous diagnosis of AN as compared to restricting anorexics and bulimics with a previous diagnosis of AN. The group of subjects with a positive family psychiatric history had more severe symptoms (i.e. vomiting and purging) and higher SCL-90 scores. The association between a positive family psychiatric history and a more serious eating psychopathology suggests that family psychiatric morbidity may have an impact on the prognosis of eating disorders.