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Within the International Collaborative Outcome Study of Eating Disorders in Adolescence (ICOSEDA) we studied the clinical features, treatment, and outcome in consecutive cohorts of adolescent patients at five sites in former West Berlin and East Berlin, Zurich, Sofia and Bucharest. A total of N = 242 patients were followed up after a mean interval of 6.4 years in young adulthood. Using semi-structured interviews it was found that on average the patients were in either inpatient or outpatient treatment for 30% of the entire period between first admission and follow-up. Across the five sites 70% recovered from the eating disorder and a similar rate showed good or fair psychosocial functioning and no other psychiatric disorder. However, the combination of these three criteria showed that at follow-up only every second former patient was a mentally healthy and psychosocially well functioning person. The univariate and joint consideration of a large list of predictors lead to the conclusion that individual prognosis of the course of adolescent eating disorders is a hazardous undertaking.

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the treatment and outcome of adolescent eating disorders in an international study including Western and Eastern European clinical and research centres., Method: A total of 138 patients with adolescent onset of an eating disorder (primarily anorexia nervosa) were followed-up after a mean interval of 5 years after first admission., Results: On average, the patients had spent 25% of the total follow-up period in either in-patient or out-patient treatment. Half of them required a second hospitalization and a quarter required a third hospitalization for the eating disorder. At follow-up, 68% of the total sample did not have an eating disorder. The prediction of outcome revealed different patterns of risk variables depending on the type of criterion., Conclusion: The outcome of adolescent eating disorders is relatively similar across cultures, and better than in patients with later onset of the disorder.

Objective: As part of the International Collaborative Study of Eating Disorders in Adolescence, with sites in West and East Berlin, Zurich, and Sofia, eating attitudes and disorders were studied in four Bulgarian samples., Method: The Eating Attitude Test (EAT) and the Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI) were used in this study. Besides a clinical group of anorectic patients, students attending either a special secondary school, a standard secondary school, or a sports school participated in this study., Results: Findings revealed excellent discriminant validity of the EAT total score and the three subscales. This also applied to four out of eight subscales of the EDI. Discriminant validity was less satisfactory in three further scales and entirely missing for Maturity Fears., Discussion: The findings are discussed in a transcultural perspective.