Eating disorders in adolescence in a Swiss epidemiological study.

OBJECTIVE

This is a study of prevalence rates for anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) in an epidemiological sample of Swiss adolescents.

METHOD: A two-stage approach was used which involved the screening of a large sample of adolescents aged 14-17 and subsequent interviews of screen-positive and control subjects.

RESULTS

The prevalence rates for adolescent girls were 0.7% for AN and 0.5% for BN.

DISCUSSION: Full clinical syndromes of AN and BN in adolescents are by far less frequent than individual symptoms of eating disorders. There is more cross-cultural variation for prevalence rates in BN than in AN.