[Prevalence of eating disorders in early adolescent students]

To measure the prevalence of Eating Behavior Disorders (EBD) in Spanish early-adolescent students using standardized methods.

A two-stage survey of prevalence of ED in a representative sample of 12 to 13 year old students in 2007 in Zaragoza (Spain). Standard evaluation: We used a two-phase cross sectional design, which involved the screening with questionnaires (EAT at a cutoff score of 20) and subsequent semi-structured interviews (SCAN) of screen-positive and screen-negative subjects. We calculated the sociodemographic characteristics, ED prevalence with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) with Confidence Interval Analysis (C.I.A.) disk version 2.0.0 (Altman et al, 2000). The study is financed by F.I.S. PI 05/2533 (Spain Health Department).

In 2007 we studied 701 students seventh-grade, ages 12 to 13, girls and boys, in 9 public and private schools in Zaragoza (30 classrooms). In the second phase 164 preteens agreed to proceed with the clinical evaluation (63 at risk, high scorers; 101 selected sample not at risk). ED prevalence was 0.7% EDNOS F 50.9 (CI 95%: 0.3%-1.7%).

The ICD-10 point prevalence rates of ED population in Spanish preteen students is similar to those reported for other developed countries. The prevalence of subclinical ED is substantially higher than that of full-syndrome.