ABSTRACT
Research on the long-term course and outcome of eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder) has the potential to improve the treatment, diagnosis, and understanding of these disorders. In order to evaluate the efficacy of treatment interventions it is important to understand both the natural course of illness and the course following intervention. Distinctions between disorders can be revealed by differential treatment response as well as differences in course and outcome over time. Finally, accurate distinctions between disorders will ultimately contribute to revealing their etiology. For example, attempts to reveal the underlying genetic bases of eating disorders require the accurate distinction of phenotypes. The purpose of this chapter is to review and compare data concerning the long-term course and outcome of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder across the following outcome domains: mortality, recovery, relapse, cross-over, prognostic variables, and treatment utilization. Because of differences in when specific eating disorders have been introduced to the psychiatric nomenclature (ranging from 1873 to 1994), significant discrepancies exist in the amount of data available to describe outcome for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.
