Abstract
Difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) are common in females with eating disorders (ED). However, no study to date has analyzed ER in males with ED. In the study at hand, we assessed ER in males with ED and compared results to both females with ED and healthy controls (HC). We also examined associations between ER difficulties, personality, and psychopathology. A total of 62 males with ED were compared with 656 females with ED, as well as 78 male and 286 female HC. ER was assessed by means of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). We found that males and females with ED showed greater ER difficulties compared to HC. Pronounced general psychopathology was a shared factor associated with higher ER difficulties in both males and females with ED. However, whereas higher novelty seeking, higher cooperativeness, lower reward dependence, and lower self-directedness were related to higher ER difficulties in females with ED, lower persistence was associated with ER difficulties in males with ED. In sum, males and females with ED show similar ER difficulties, yet they are distinct in how ER deficits relate to specific personality traits. Research on strategies promoting ER in the treatment of males with ED is warranted.
Highlights
Emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the sum of techniques applied to manage the variety, intensity, and duration of emotions [1]
Patients with binge-eating disorder (BED) show less severe ER difficulties than patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN) [5,10], there are studies claiming that patients with binge-eating episodes (BED, BN, and AN/binge-eating purging subtype) present more ER difficulties compared to patients with AN/restrictive subtype [11] and others have shown no differences across eating disorders (ED) types [12]
The results suggest that, a more dysfunctional personality profile and being female increased the risk of higher ED severity and general psychopathology, which contributed to an increase in ER difficulties in patients with ED
Summary
Emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the sum of techniques applied to manage the variety, intensity, and duration of emotions [1]. Such strategies range from the putatively less adaptive, such as dissociation, avoidance, or suppression, to the supposedly more adaptive, e.g., cognitive reappraisal or problem-solving. Patients with binge-eating disorder (BED) show less severe ER difficulties than patients with AN or BN [5,10], there are studies claiming that patients with binge-eating episodes (BED, BN, and AN/binge-eating purging subtype) present more ER difficulties compared to patients with AN/restrictive subtype [11] and others have shown no differences across ED types [12]. ED are associated with other behaviors linked to ER difficulties, such as substance abuse and self-harm [9,13,14,15]
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