Eating Disorder-Related Symptom Reduction, Suicidal/Self-Injurious Behavior, Emotional Dysregulation and Interpersonal Difficulties in an Eating Disorder-Specific Treatment - A Clinical Study

Abstract

This study exploratively investigated a possible relationship between suicidal/self-injurious behavior and the change in self-reported eating disorder symptoms as well as emotional dysregulation and interpersonal difficulties during eating disorder-specific treatment. For this purpose, the symptom index of the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-SI) and the scale for the assessment of impulsivity and emotional dysregulation of borderline personality disorder (IES-27) with its subscales suicidal and self-injurious behavior (SVV/SEV), emotional dysregulation (EmotDys) and interpersonal difficulties (BezSchw) were collected from 167 female patients at a psychosomatic clinic. The participants were divided into four groups depending on the occurrence of SVV/SEV before the start and/or end of treatment. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with repeated measures showed an interaction of time and SVV/SEV group with regard to EDI-SI, EmotDys and BezSchw. The effect sizes of the pre-post comparison of the EDI-SI were very different in the groups divided according to the occurrence of SVV/SEV (0.27<g*< 1.32). No significant improvement in the EDI-SI was found on average for people with new occurrence of SVV/SEV during the course of treatment. People who were able to cease SVV/SEV in the course of treatment also benefited in terms of the EDI-SI. The decisive factor for the consideration of SVV/SEV in patients with eating disorders appears to be less the SVV/SEV reported before the start of treatment, but rather newly occurring or persistent SVV/SEV during the course of treatment.