The Aims of the current study are threefold: 1) to analyze the prevalence of Personality disorders (PD) in Eating Disorders (ED); 2) to compare clinical, psychopathological and personality differences between ED with PD vs. ED without PD; 3) to compare the differential observed prevalence of PD in ED and their healthy sisters.

101 ED individuals and 34 discordant healthy sisters participated in the study. All the patients were consecutively admitted to our Unit. All patients met DSM-IV criteria for ED and were female. Assessment measures included the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 (EDI-2), the Symptoms Check List (SCL-90-R) and the Temperament and Character Inventory-R (TCI-R), The International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE) as well as a number of other clinical and psychopathological indexes.

As the most prevalent PD in ED, we found Borderline (21,5%, specially in BN), and the Obsessive-Compulsive PD (12%; specially in AN). When compared ED+PD and ED-PD, the former showed higher general psychopathology and ED severity, but also some specific personality traits (higher harm Avoidance, p<.001; and lower self-directedness, p<.001). From, comparing the ED and their healthy sisters, PD was more prevalent in the former (32.3% vs. 9.4%; X2 =10,15, p<.001).

the most common PD in ED are Borderline (especially in BN) and the Obsessive-Compulsive PD (especially in AN). Comorbid PD was associated in ED to greater general psychopathology and higher ED severity. These results were found to be differential when comparing ED and their healthy sisters.

Supported by FIS (PI040619; CB06/03/0034)