Bulimia: Symptoms and Syndromes in an Urban Population

Abstract

The widely used DSM-Ill criteria for the diagnosis of bulimia essentially define bulimia as a syndrome of guilty, secretive and subjectively hard to control binge over-eating. A self-report questionnaire for bulimic behavior was administered to three community and two hospital populations in South Australia. 13% of females in the community samples could be categorized as bulimic according to the DSM-Ill criteria. Those criteria did not adequately define the behaviour of patients in treatment for bulimia in a Weight Disorders Unit, 85% of whom not only binged, but induced vomiting afterwards. When diagnostic criteria were more closely aligned to clinical experience, the prevalence of bulimia in the community appeared closer to 1–2%. New DSM criteria (DSM-Ill-R) have been proposed and prevalence rates using them fell within the 1–2% range.