Eating disorders in 11–17 year old schoolgirls: Prevalence, features of clinical manifestations, psychosomatic comorbidity

Abstract

Background. Eating disorders are an urgent public health problem due to their high prevalence and mortality. The disease prognosis depends on timely diagnosis; however, these conditions are sure to be underestimated.The aim. To study the prevalence, features of clinical manifestations and psychosomatic comorbidity of eating disorder (ED) and subthreshold eating disorder (SED) in schoolgirls aged 11–17 years.Materials and methods. We examined 917 schoolgirls aged 11–17 years. The screening questionnaire including 11questions combined into three pools named “Thoughts about one’s own body” was used. The first pool (A) – assessed body dissatisfaction, the second one (B) – eating disorders, the third one (C) – food intake disorders. The answers were encoded as “1”, “2”, “3” (“false”, “rather true”, “true”). Schoolgirls who scored the maximum number of points (12) in the pool A were regarded as dissatisfied with their body and were further divided into two groups: the first group (ED) included girls who scored more than 10 points in the pool B; girls who scored less than 10 points were in the second group (SED), respectively. Body mass index (BMI) was determined by the weight-height coefficient correlated with centile tables. Psychosomatic comorbidity was assessed by the presence of recurrent headache and abdominal pain in the last six months.Results. The overall prevalence of eating disorders was 11.7 %, where ED made 2.1 %, SED – 9.6 %. All schoolgirls had abnormal eating behavior; however, those with SED used less aggressive weight-loss methods. BMI ˂ 5th percentile was observed in 10 % of girls with ED and 4.5 % – with SED. 60 % of girls with ED and 40.9 % with SED complained about frequent headaches; 30 % of girls with ED and 20.4 % with SED were suffering from frequent abdominal pain.Conclusion. In schoolgirls, subthreshold eating disorder is 4.6 times more common than threshold eating disorder. Characteristics of clinical manifestations are the absence of underweight for most schoolgirls and comorbidity with pain syndrome.