Eating Disorders in a National Sample of Hospitalized Female and Male Veterans: Detection Rates and Psychiatric Comorbidity

Objective: Using a national sample of hospitalized female and male veterans, this study examined the point prevalence of detected cases of eating disorders and explored psychiatric comorbidity in cases with an eating disorder.

Methods: Prevalence rates were determined by reviewing the discharge diagnoses of 24,041 women and 466,590 men hospitalized in Veteran Affairs medical centers during fiscal year 1996. Comorbidity was examined by individually matching eating disorder cases (N = 161) with patients without an eating disorder, using sex, race, and age as matching variables.

Results: On the basis of routine clinical diagnosis, 0.30% of the female veterans and 0.02% of the male veterans were diagnosed with a current ICD-9-CM eating disorder. Women with eating disorders had significantly elevated rates of comorbid substance, mood, anxiety (particularly posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), adjustment, and personality (particularly borderline personality disorder [BPD]) disorders. Men with eating disorders were found to have high rates of comorbid organic mental, schizophrenic/psychotic, substance, and mood disorder.

Conclusions: Our study illustrates the value of administrative data sets for the investigation of uncommon diseases.