The comorbidity of personality disorders in eating disorders: a meta-analysis

Purpose The present meta-analysis summarized the proportion of comorbid personality disorders (PDs) in patients with anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN), respectively, and examined possible moderating variables. Methods A search of the databases PsychINFO, Embase, and Medline for the period 1980-2016 identified 87 studies from 18 different countries. Results The mean proportion of PDs among patients with any type of eating disorder (ED) was .52 compared to .09 in healthy controls. There were no statistically significant differences between AN (.49) and BN (.54) in proportions of any PD or PD clusters except for obsessive-compulsive PD (.23 vs .12 in AN and BN, respectively). Conclusions Both ED diagnoses had a similar comorbidity profile with a high prevalence of borderline and avoidant PDs. Moderator analyses conducted for any ED and any PD yielded significant differences for diagnostic systems with respect to EDs, method for assessing PD as well as patient weight and age.