Department of Mental Health, St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, and Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Serafino G. Mancuso
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Andrea Phillipou
Department of Mental Health, St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, and Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
David J. Castle
Department of Mental Health, St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, and Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
The transition from DSM-IV to DSM-5 relaxed diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, and recognised a third eating disorder, binge eating disorder. However, a large proportion of cases remain in the ill-defined category of ‘other specified feeding and eating disorders’. We sought to investigate the utility of a proposed solution to classify this group further, subdividing based on the dominant clinical feature: binge eating/purging or restraint. Cluster analysis failed to identify clusters in a treatment-seeking sample based on symptoms of restraint, binge eating, purging and over-evaluation of shape and weight. Further investigation of this highly heterogeneous group is required.
