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Sexual Abuse in Patients with Eating Disorder, Patients with Depression, and Normal Controls

A Comparative Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Christine M. Vize  and
Peter J. Cooper
Christine M. Vize
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London
Peter J. Cooper*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The University of Reading, Reading
*
Professor Peter J. Cooper, Department of Psychology, The University of Reading, 3 Earley Gate, Whiteknights Road, Reading RG6 2AL. Fax: 01734 316665
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Extract

Background

A history of sexual abuse has been widely reported in patients with eating disorders. However, the association does not appear to be specific, because a high rate of such abuse has also been found in other psychiatric patients.

Method

A standardised interview method was used to elicit details of sexual abuse in a psychiatrically normal control group and samples of patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or depression.

Results

An equally high rate of abuse was found in all three clinical samples. Among the patients with anorexia nervosa the presence of bulimic episodes was not found to be associated with reports of abuse; and among the patients with bulimia nervosa there was no relationship between abuse and a history of anorexia nervosa. Among the patients with eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, assessed by means of self-report questionnaire, was not found to be related to reports of abuse, although there was an association between abuse and both indices of impulsive behaviour and the overall level of personality disturbance.

Conclusions

Childhood sexual abuse appears to be a vulnerability factor for psychiatric disorder in general and not eating disorders in particular. The way in which abuse interacts with other aetiological factors to produce different psychopathological trajectories remains to be elucidated.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 167 , Issue 1 , July 1995 , pp. 80 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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