Citation

Folsom V, Krahn D, Nairn K, Gold L, Demitrack MA, Silk KR. Int. J. Eat. Disord. 1993; 13(3): 249-257.

Affiliation

Mental Health Services, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, Olympia, Washington.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8477296

Abstract

The authors compared rates of physical and sexual abuse in women with eating disorders (N = 102) and general psychiatric disorders (N = 49). Relationships between sexual abuse and severity of eating disordered and psychiatric symptoms were also examined. While high rates of sexual abuse were found in the eating disordered sample, these rates were not significantly higher than those found in the general psychiatric population. No relationship between a history of sexual abuse and severity of eating disordered symptoms was found. However, within the eating disordered group, sexually abuse subjects reported more severe psychiatric disturbances of an obsessive and phobic nature than nonabused subjects. These findings suggest that while sexually abusive experiences may be related to increased psychological distress, they do not serve to increase eating disordered symptomatology.

Language: en