Prof. dr hab. Anna Brytek-Matera, head of the Department of Nutritional Psychology at the Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, has been a visiting professor at Western Sydney University School of Medicine since July. Western Sydney University is among the top 2% of the world’s most prestigious universities.
As a laureate of the Bekker Programme of the National Agency for Academic Exchange, Prof. Anna Brytek-Matera is carrying out research entitled “Diagnostic accuracy of DSM-5 and ICD-11 in eating disorders: evaluation of clinical features in a representative sample of adults” (no BPN/BEK/2021/1/00004/DEC/1). As part of the research project, he is collaborating with Professor Phillipa Hay, a world-renowned specialist in the treatment of eating disorders and director of The Translational Health Research Institute (THRI) Eating Disorder and Body Image Network (EDBI).
There are currently two diagnostic classifications: The DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Mental Disorders created by the American Psychiatric Association (2013) and the ICD-11 International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Problems developed by the World Health Organisation (2019).
Using an extensive database from a representative sample of adults living in Australia (N = 2,977), we examined the clinical utility of two commonly used mental disorder classification systems DSM-5 and ICD-11 for bulimia nervosa and overeating seizure disorder. Our results showed that the estimated prevalence of bulimia nervosa was slightly higher using the ICD-11 diagnostic criteria (1.31%) compared to the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (1.27%). Similarly, the estimated prevalence of an overeating seizure disorder was higher when using ICD-11 diagnostic criteria (0.8 per cent) than when using DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (0.2 per cent) in a representative random sample of Australian adults. Furthermore, our results showed that when using DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for other eating disorders (e.g. laxative disorders, nocturnal overeating), their prevalence is higher (0.63%) than when using ICD-11 diagnostic criteria (0.47%). Furthermore, our results showed that levels of physical health-related quality of life and anxiety and depression occurred with similar severity in eating disorders regardless of the diagnostic criteria used (DSM-5 and ICD-11).
It is worth noting that the two classifications have some conceptual differences, which, according to some researchers, may lay the groundwork for a reorganisation of the overall classification structure.
The use of a representative sample provides the opportunity to generalise the results to the whole population and allows an assessment of the actual percentage of people who meet the diagnostic criteria for eating disorders. Few studies have been conducted in this area. Our research has responded to this deficit.
