Executive dysfunction in eating disorders: Relationship with clinical features.

Eating disorders (ED) are severe mental disorders that may result in significant functional impairment and disability. Neuropsychological studies have consistently found impaired executive function (EF) among ED patients. EF is particularly involved in fundamental skills of daily living and in behavioral and emotional regulation. In this study, impairment of executive functioning is investigated in patients with eating disorders and the associations with clinical features and clinical subtypes are analyzed. 75 female patients (m = 22.01 years, sd = 9.15) with eating disorder (43 restrictive anorexia, 30 binge-eating anorexia and 13 bulimia nervosa) and 37 healthy controls (m = 18.54 years, sd = 4.21) were included in the study. An extensive assessment of executive function domains (verbal fluency, set shifting, attention span, selective attention, working memory, inhibitory control and processing speed) was carried out in both groups. Clinical scales for food intake restriction, binge-eating/purging, depression, anxiety and impulsivity were also administered and correlated with scores on executive function tests. Patients with an ED had significantly lower scores than healthy controls in performance of several executive function tests, particularly in set shifting, interference control and processing speed (p <.01 , in all three domains). Executive function impairment was related to anxious, depressive and eating disorder symptoms (p <.05), regardless of clinical subtype. Executive function impairment in eating disorders is associated with greater ED symptomatic severity and might involve a negative treatment outcome. Therefore, cognitive remediation techniques should probably be considered in a number of severe patients with ED. • Patients with an eating disorder perform worse than healthy controls in different executive function tasks. • The most affected tasks are those that require set shifting, interference control and processing speed. • None of the evaluated functions showed differences according to the clinical subtype of the patients. • Executive function impairment is related to anxious, depressive and eating disorder Symptoms in our sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]