Measuring the specific psychopathology of eating disorder patients

Cooper and Fairburn's Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) is a semi-structured interview designed to assess the specific psychopathology of eating disorder subjects. It was employed in a study of 116 Sydney patients for 2 purposes: first, to determine its usefulness in an Australian context; and second, to compare patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia and atypical eating disorder. The instrument appears to be quite appropriate for studies in Australia. With respect to the second aim, the results emphasize the essential similarity in psychopathology between the three diagnostic groups. The relevance of this latter finding to the categorisation of eating disorders in the DSM-IV proposals is discussed.