Eating disorders comprise a number of psychiatric disorders with different severity and clinical presentations. Usually clinicians see only the severest cases but it is possible that apparently healthy subjects could present signs of a subthreshold form. Traits, signs, symptoms, and temperamental personality features that usually constitute a halo around the typical manifestations of an eating disorder could represent vulnerability factors for the development of a full-blown disorder or constitute residuals of a previous disorder. The presence of features of the anorexic-bulimic spectrum in patients with other mental disorders can interfere with the clinical presentation, the compliance to treatment, and with the prognosis.

Scoring

Each of the ABS instruments consists of 134 items coded as present or absent for one or more periods of at least 3-5 days through the subject’s lifetime or over the past week or month and collapsed into nine domains, as shown below.
See algorithm section, below on this page for how to score the instrument.

Psychometric Properties

Mauri M, Borri C, Baldassari S, Benvenuti A, Rucci P, Cassano GB, Shear MK, Grochocinski VJ, Maser JD, Frank E: Acceptability and psychometric properties of the Structured Clinical Interview for Anorexic – Bulimic Spectrum (SCI-ABS). Int J Meth Psych Res 9:68-78, 2000.

Note: each items is scored as "0" (NO), "1" (YES).
(1) attitudes and beliefes	sum of items 1 - 7
(2) weight history	sum of items 8 - 12
(3) self-esteem and satisfaction	sum of items 13 - 23
(4) phobias	sum of items 24 - 48
(5) avoidant and compulsive behaviours	sum of items 49 - 57
(6) weight maintenance	sum of items 58 - 87
(7) eating discontrol	sum of items 88 - 106
(8) associated futures and consequences	sum of items 107 - 126
(9) impairment and insight	sum of items 127 - 134
Total score (sum of domains scores) range 0 - 134 Threshold for total score for any of the instruments: none determined at this time