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The purpose of this study was to assess how accurately patients with eating disorders recall their symptoms after 6 to 12 months, to evaluate whether more recent symptoms are remembered more accurately, and to determine the extent to which the accuracy of recall impacts diagnostic classification. Seventy women who were enrolled in a longitudinal study of eating disorder symptoms were asked to recall their eating patterns, behaviors, and attitudes from 6 or 12 months earlier using semistructured interviews (Eating Disorders Examination and McKnight Longitudinal Follow-up Interview for Eating Disorders). Results indicated that correlations between the original and recalled data for frequency of objective binge eating episodes and vomiting ranged from r = .534 to .898 (average, r = .772), with lower correlations for subjective binge eating episodes (average, r = .335). Attitudes toward shape and weight were recalled more accurately at 6 months (average, r = .907) than 12 months (average, r = .620). κ Coefficients were higher for eating disorder diagnoses using broad than narrow definitions, with no differences between 6- and 12-month recall. Overall, agreement for depression recall was low but better at 6 months (κ = .423) than 12 months (κ = .296). These findings suggest that patients with eating disorders are at least moderately accurate when recalling most symptoms from 6 to 12 months earlier. Although broadly defined eating disorder diagnoses remained consistent, depression and narrower eating disorder diagnostic classifications showed more variability.

Psychiatric research typically relies on retrospective recall of symptoms, especially for diagnostic interviews such as the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV [1]. The accuracy of lifetime diagnoses depends on the patient's ability to recall symptoms from earlier periods. These data are crucial components of psychopathology research, including studies of epidemiology, psychiatric comorbidity, and genetics. Although interviews that use retrospectively recalled information are widely administered, the degree to which patients can remember their symptoms accurately is uncertain. Retrospective recall of symptoms can be limited in accuracy by several memory errors and cognitive biases [2], [3], [4] and [5]. Several studies have found that correlations between symptoms that are reported at one time and recalled later are only modest for psychiatric symptoms including anxiety [6] and substance use disorders [6], as well as behaviors including smoking [7] and [8] and physical activity [8] and [9]. Very little is known about the accuracy with which eating disorder symptoms can be remembered. Field et al [10] found only moderate accuracy of long-term recall of binge eating and purging behaviors using a self-report questionnaire. However, this question has not been investigated using a semistructured interview method. The primary goal of this study was to assess how accurately participants recall eating disorder and depressive symptoms after 6 and 12 months have elapsed. It was hypothesized that symptoms would be recalled more accurately after 6 than 12 months because memory retention of dietary patterns has been found to deteriorate as the time interval increases [11]. The second goal of this study was to evaluate how the inconsistencies between reported and recalled data impact the reliability of eating disorder and depression diagnoses and the extent to which these inconsistencies in recall affect both broad and narrow classification methods.