Comorbidities and Overlap of Major Depression and Eating disorders: A Systematic Literature Review

Eating disorders (EDs) are found to have high rates of comorbidity accompanied by other mental illnesses in particular with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The main objective of the present study was, to conduct a systematic review on the risk of depression in patients suffering from eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa). The study was conducted using online databases: such as PUBMED, PsycInfo, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar. Data are collected from studies conducted from 2000 to 2018. Of the selected studies, 6 were case-control studies, 6 were cross-sectional studies, 2 systematic reviews, and only one case study. Out of the 15 selected studies, the majority of them indicated that there is no correlation between eating disorders and depression. This systematic review demonstrates that there is no authenticated scale to evaluate the specific relationship between an eating disorder and different types of depression. There is however a scale that evaluates the relationship between depressive and eating behavior, the Emotional Eating Scale (EES). Based on the results obtained from the majority of the selected studies, it is evident that there is no connection between eating disorders and depression. Usually, symptoms pertaining to depression and eating disorders are comorbid. Hence considering the same view, depressive symptoms are frequently evaluated in regards to an eating disorder. Therefore, additional efforts are needed to extend interventions that are simpler and applicable in diminishing both major depression and eating disorder in order to increase the efficiency of therapy.