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A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset

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Abstract

Fifty-one adolescent onset anorexia nervosa (AN) cases recruited after community screening were compared with fifty-one age-, sex- and schoolmatched cases with regard to comorbidity and personality disorders at age 21 years. All 102 cases had originally been examined at a mean age of 16 years. Outcome according to the Morgan-Russell scales was fairly similar to that reported in recent clinic-based samples. Most of the former AN cases were recovered in respect of weight but outcome in social areas was restricted. Obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality disorders and empathy disorders were very much more common in the AN than in the comparison group. Obsessive compulsive behaviors showed a high degree of stability over time and were unrelated to weight problems. Together with empathy disorders they tended to predict outcome better than the eating disorder as such. Affective disorders were common but tended to follow the course of the eating disorder rather than precede or postdate it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Child Neuropsychiatry Clinic, USA

    M. Råstam (Chief Physician in charge of services for eating disorder patients)

  2. East Hospital Göteborg, Sweden

    C. Gillberg (Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Göteborg University, and Head of Child Neuropsychiatry Clinic) & I. C. Gillberg

Authors
  1. M. Råstam
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  2. C. Gillberg
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  3. I. C. Gillberg
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Additional information

Received Ph.D. on “Anorexia Nerevosa in Swedish Urban Teenagers” at Göteborg University in 1990. Major research interests concern the epidemiology and background factors of eating disorder.

Received Ph.D. in 1981 at the University of Uppsala on “Neuropsychiatric aspects of perceptual, motor, and attentional deficits in seven-year-old Swedish children.” Major research interests are autism, Asperger syndrome, anorexia nervosa, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, mental retardation, lefthandedness, and behavioral phenotypes.

Received Ph.D. in 1987 at The University of Uppsala on “Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception: Follow-Up from Pre-School to Early Teens.” Her major research interests concern attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

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Råstam, M., Gillberg, C. & Gillberg, I.C. A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset. J Youth Adolescence 25, 439–453 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537541

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537541

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