Personality Disorder in Adolescent Patients with Anorexia Nervosa.

OBJECTIVE

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a highly debilitating disease which frequently results in chronification and often originates in adolescence. Personality traits have been associated with the onset and maintenance of AN; moreover, study results indicated a worse treatment outcome in patients with AN and comorbid personality disorder (PD). However, research on PD in adolescent AN is scarce.

METHODS

The sample consists of 73 female adolescent patients with AN. We investigated comorbid PD and AN symptom severity performing the International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE) and the Eating Disorder Inventory 2 (EDI-2).

RESULTS

Almost a third (27.4%) of all participants were diagnosed with comorbid PD. They had significantly higher EDI-2 total scores reflecting overall stronger symptom severity, as well as significantly higher scores in the subscales "ineffectiveness," "interpersonal distrust," "interoceptive awareness," "asceticism," "impulse regulation," and "social insecurity."

CONCLUSION

PD is an important and frequent comorbid condition in adolescent AN and should be addressed in diagnostic and treatment planning. Early diagnosis of comorbidity could have an impact on choosing specialized treatment for adolescents with AN and PD in order to enhance the outcome.