Predictive factors of social disability in patients with eating disorders

Objective: The study was designed to assess whether social avoidance symptoms and/or comorbid anxiety disorders were predictive factors of social disability in subjects with eating disorders. Method: Sixty-three subjects with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa were assessed for lifetime diagnoses of anxiety disorders, childhood history of separation anxiety disorder, social avoidance symptoms and social disability. Results: On the Groningen Social Disabilities Schedule, 86% of the anorexics and 65% of the bulimics had disability regarding the ‘social role’, and 86% and 61% disability regarding the ‘occupational role’. Using all subsets logistic regression analyses, predictive factors of disability were: (1) for the social role, social avoidance symptom score (p