Mortality in anorexia nervosa

OBJECTIVE: The author's goal was to shed light on the debate regarding the mortality rate over time associated with anorexia nervosa. METHOD: He conducted a meta-analytic study using weighted linear regression to combine crude mortality proportions from 42 published studies to estimate the mortality associated with anorexia nervosa over time. RESULTS: The crude rate of mortality due to all causes of death for subjects with anorexia nervosa in these studies was 5.9% (178 deaths in 3,006 subjects). The aggregate mortality rate was estimated to be 0.56% per year, or approximately 5.6% per decade. CONCLUSIONS: The aggregate estimated mortality rate for subjects with anorexia nervosa is substantially greater than that reported for female psychiatric inpatients and for the general population.