Depression in anorexia nervosa

Abstract

SYNOPSIS In three collaborating institutions 105 hospitalized female anorexia nervosa patients were assessed for depressive symptomatology periodically during treatment. As a whole, patients were mildly to moderately depressed, being as depressed as anxious neurotics and less depressed than depressed neurotics. The more depressed patients showed a variety of characteristics, many of which have previously been shown to be indicators of poor prognosis. Over the course of treatment patients became less depressed. Weight gain was correlated with a decrease in depression.

Anorexia nervosa in Italy: Clinical Features and Outcome in a Long-Term Follow-Up Study

“…It must be emphasized that in our group the percentages vary little from onset to follow-up. The relationship between AN and depression has received consider able attention [5,9]. Dally [8] found depres sion less frequent, while it was more com mon in the studies of Morgan and Russell [27], Cantwell et al [5] and Hsu et al [19].…”

“…Early authors who tended to place it in the realm of the hysterical neuroses [12,26] were followed by others who have likened it to a psychosomatic [24,30], depressive [9,39] or obsessive-compul sive personality disorder [8]. In the forms of AN with bulimia, a relationship has been hypothesized to borderline personality dis orders, behavior and drug dependence dis orders [6,14].…”

A Controlled Family Study of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

“…However, they also had a relatively low rate of major depressive disorder (MDD). Because malnutrition has been shown to exaggerate depressive symptoms, 28,29 we used additional criteria requiring substantial impairment in school or occupational functioning independent of an episode of malnutrition to make this diagnosis for all probands and relatives. All other diagnoses were made according to DSM-III-R criteria.…”

Syndrome Metamorphoses in Anorexia nervosa – An Example of Integrative Psychopathology

“…The pathological situ ation here highlights the mutual dependence of body and psyche as an integrative entity. Even though there is strong evidence for a psychogenesis, it seems that influenced by pathogenic and pathoplastic factors a sec ondary system-inherent dynamic is consti tuted which determines the clinical picture separated from the initial constellation [4,8,10,18,23,28], Psychopathological phenom ena which are originated by such complex conditions are the challenge to a 'nach alien Seiten hin offene' psychopathological inves tigation [12], This conception with its inte grative strategy gives up any possible meth odologically founded hypothesis and tries to view anorexia nervosa under a holistic head ing in disregard of one-sided biological mod els.…”