Exploring the relationship between eating disorder symptoms and substance use severity in women with comorbid PTSD...

Eating disorders (ED) and substance use disorders (SUD) commonly co-occur, especially in conjunction with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet little is known about ED and ED symptoms in women presenting to addiction treatment programs.

We examined the association between ED symptoms and substance use frequency and severity in a sample of women with a DSM IV diagnosis of current SUD and PTSD enrolled in SUD treatment.

Participants were 122 women from four substance abuse treatment sites who participated in a multi-site clinical trial through the National Institute of Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network (NIDA CTN). The Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q), the Clinician's Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) and the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) were administered at baseline and correlational analyses were performed. Variables that significantly correlated with EDE-Q total and subscale scores were entered into a linear regression analysis.

Scores on the EDE-Q Global scale, as well as the Eating Concern, Weight Concern and Shape Concern subscales of the EDE-Q were significantly associated with Caucasian race/ethnicity, past 30 day opiate use, higher ASI Psychiatric Subscale score and lower ASI Employment Subscale score.

Although exploratory, these findings suggest that there may be a relationship between addiction severity, use of certain drugs of abuse and eating disorder symptoms, particularly those involving weight and shape concerns in women with comorbid PTSD and SUD.