Eating Disorders in Schizophrenia

Abstract

An investigation of eating disorders in a population of chronic schizophrenic patients confirmed that there is a distinction between eating disorders of psychotics and eating disorders of the young. All the DSM-III criteria of eating disorders, except one, were observed among the psychotics although no patient fulfilled the necessary criteria for an eating disorder diagnosis except for one anorexic woman. All varieties of schizophrenic eating disorder were reported: in two-fifths of the patients eating disorders were associated with delusions and in one sixth with hallucinations; more than half of the patients had deviant eating behaviour which was not associated with any thought or perceptual disorders. Schizophrenic eating disorders were common, yet not disturbing to the social life of the open mental hospital or to that of the community surrounding it.