Table 1.

Summary characteristics of the sample population with eating disorders

	Mean
	2005 (n = 1291)	2008 (n = 1374)	2011 (n = 1715)	2014 (n = 2222)	2017 (n = 2051)	2020 (n = 1744)
Type of Eating Disorders
AN only	0.270	0.253	0.226	0.326	0.373	0.447
BN only	0.120	0.082	0.081	0.121	0.107	0.073
Other or unspecified eating disorders	0.513	0.550	0.552	0.419	0.342	0.353
AN and BN	0.014	0.014	0.012	0.018	0.028	0.027
AN and Other or unspecified eating disorders	0.060	0.055	0.085	0.078	0.112	0.085
BN and Other or unspecified eating disorders	0.018	0.031	0.031	0.029	0.021	0.009
AN and BN and Other or unspecified eating disorders	0.005	0.014	0.014	0.009	0.017	0.006
Need Variable
Female	0.892	0.884	0.898	0.917	0.906	0.907
Age
less than 15 years	0.088	0.095	0.092	0.087	0.094	0.101
15–24 years	0.522	0.493	0.502	0.542	0.517	0.544
25–34 years	0.175	0.177	0.169	0.176	0.164	0.173
35–44 years	0.093	0.112	0.111	0.090	0.096	0.080
45 years and above	0.122	0.124	0.127	0.105	0.129	0.103
Comorbidities
No common psychiatric or medical comorbidity	0.318	0.360	0.391	0.363	0.325	0.381
One or more common psychiatric comorbidity	0.542	0.515	0.483	0.476	0.446	0.461
One or more common medical comorbidity	0.047	0.045	0.043	0.042	0.039	0.037
One or more common psychiatric and medical comorbidity	0.092	0.081	0.083	0.119	0.191	0.120
Duration of any eating disorder
less than 1 year	0.626	0.582	0.552	0.523	0.522	0.446
1–3 years	0.289	0.245	0.250	0.262	0.259	0.332
over 3 years	0.085	0.174	0.198	0.215	0.220	0.223
Non-need variables
Australia born^	0.904	0.912	0.911	0.907	0.900	0.907
Country of birth+
Australia	0.904	0.912	0.911	0.907	0.900	0.907
Europe	0.029	0.023	0.028	0.028	0.036	0.031
Asia	0.029	0.026	0.027	0.024	0.031	0.029
Africa	0.006	0.012	0.008	0.010	0.006	0.005
Oceania, New Zealand, the Americas or Other	0.032	0.027	0.026	0.032	0.026	0.028
Marital status
Never married	0.770	0.792	0.788	0.819	0.807	0.850
Married or de-facto	0.136	0.140	0.145	0.127	0.131	0.109
Widowed/divorced/separated	0.094	0.068	0.066	0.055	0.062	0.041
Remoteness
Major city	0.757	0.706	0.759	0.775	0.779	0.754
Regional or remote	0.243	0.294	0.241	0.225	0.221	0.246
Socioeconomic status (SEIFA - IRSAD)
Decile 1	0.063	0.058	0.047	0.044	0.049	0.040
Decile 2	0.075	0.056	0.066	0.062	0.056	0.056
Decile 3	0.054	0.061	0.058	0.052	0.049	0.055
Decile 4	0.080	0.121	0.086	0.113	0.097	0.117
Decile 5	0.096	0.103	0.083	0.096	0.104	0.113
Decile 6	0.105	0.116	0.118	0.122	0.131	0.147
Decile 7	0.069	0.077	0.090	0.076	0.077	0.086
Decile 8	0.138	0.094	0.112	0.119	0.136	0.105
Decile 9	0.165	0.162	0.171	0.161	0.153	0.150
Decile 10	0.154	0.153	0.169	0.156	0.148	0.133

Notes: AN: Anorexia Nervosa; BN: Bulimia Nervosa; ^dichotomous independent variable used for country of birth with 1 ‘born in Australia’ and 0 otherwise in regression analyses; ⁺The classification was based on Cheah, Jackson, Touyz, & Hay, 2020 (Cheah et al., 2020).