Quality of life in patients with binge eating disorder

To examine Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) in patients with binge eating disorder (BED).

Cross-sectional comparison of HRQL in a BED sample to published normative and clinical samples. Further cross-sectional comparisons within the BED sample comparing obese and non-obese subjects, and depressed and non-depressed subjects.

Ninety-four patients (73 women and 21 men), who met DSM-IV criteria and attended a medical school based program for BED, participated. Mean body mass index (BMI) was 35.2 (SD = 8.1), and mean age was 44.9 (SD = 8.3); 78.7% of participants were Caucasian.

Subjects completed the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36), a self-report measure of HRQL.

BED patients reported worse functioning in all HRQL domains than US norms, and in some domains of HRQL than obese treatment seekers. Among BED patients, obese BED subjects had significantly worse Physical Component summary scores than non-obese BED subjects, whereas depressed BED subjects had significantly worse Mental Component summary scores than non-depressed BED subjects.

Obesity status and depression appear to be related to HRQL among BED patients with obesity being related to physical HRQL and depression being related to mental HRQL.