General practice consultation patterns preceding diagnosis of eating disorders

To see whether patients with eating disorders consult general practitioners more frequently than control subjects and, if so, to describe the pattern of consultation.

General practitioner case record review of patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and partial syndromes referred to a specialist eating disorder service.

Seventy-eight of 100 case records were available for analysis. Eating disorder patients consulted significantly more frequently than controls over 5 years prior to the diagnosis of the eating disorder. They presented to the general practitioners with a variety of symptoms including psychological, gastrointestinal, and gynecological complaints.

The findings suggest that methods could be developed to enable earlier diagnosis of eating disorders in general practice. This will enable the earlier application of effective treatments with the prospect of improved outcome.