Purpose: Emotional functions may play an important role in anorexia nervosa (AN). The onset of the disorder generally occurs during adolescence, which is a critical period of emotional development. However, most studies that evaluated emotional functions in AN were conducted in adult patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate emotion regulation, emotion recognition, and empathy skills in adolescent girls with AN by controlling for the effects of depression and anxiety symptoms, childhood traumatic experiences, and attachment security on emotional functions.
Methods: Thirty-two adolescent girls with AN and 32 healthy counterparts completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, and the Child and Adolescent KA-SI Empathic Tendency Scale-Adolescent Form.
Results: The results revealed that adolescents with AN were found to have more difficulties in emotion regulation, higher alexithymic tendencies, and lower empathy skills compared with the control group. However, emotion recognition was not found to be significantly different between the two groups. These results were the same when controlling for the effects of depression and anxiety symptoms, childhood traumatic experiences, and attachment security except for empathy skills. Alexithymia and depressive symptoms were significantly related to emotion regulation difficulties in adolescents with AN.
Conclusions: Considering the results, it seems that emotion regulation and alexithymia may play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of AN. Accordingly, it is necessary to focus on the improvement of these skills during the treatment of AN. Furthermore, interventions promoting these skills during adolescence may be preventive.
Level Of Evidence: Level III, case-control study.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40519-019-00768-8 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Six weeks that changed the preterm infant brain: lessons learned from the Family Nurture Intervention randomized controlled trials.
Front Psychol
January 2025
Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.
Aim: We review extensive results from two randomized controlled trials conducted over 9 years, comparing standard care (SC) in level-4 neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) with SC plus Family Nurture Intervention (FNI).
Methods: FNI included ~six weeks of facilitated mother-infant interactions aimed at achieving mother-infant 'autonomic emotional connection', a novel construct that describes the emotional mother-baby relationship at the level of the autonomic nervous system.
Results And Conclusion: Thus far, 18 peer-reviewed publications documented significant positive short-and long-term effects of FNI on infant neurobehavioral functioning, developmental trajectories and both mother and child autonomic health through five years.
Infant regulatory problems and the quality of dyadic emotional connection-a proof-of-concept study in a multilingual sample.
Front Child Adolesc Psychiatry
January 2024
Department of Paediatrics I, Neonatology, Paediatric Intensive Care, Paediatric Neurology, University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Background And Aims: Close autonomic emotional connections with others help infants reach and maintain homoeostasis. In recent years, infant regulatory problems (RPs, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEditorial: Rising stars in child mental health and interventions.
Front Child Adolesc Psychiatry
October 2024
School of Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States.
Cure for tantrums? Longitudinal associations between parental digital emotion regulation and children's self-regulatory skills.
Front Child Adolesc Psychiatry
June 2024
Faculty of Education, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada.
Introduction: Parents often use digital devices to regulate their children's negative emotions, e.g., to stop tantrums.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPTSD, dysregulation profile and substance use: exploring differences in a sample of adolescents in an outpatient clinic.
Front Child Adolesc Psychiatry
December 2024
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
Introduction: Experiencing traumatic events (TEs), especially interpersonal TEs, is related to an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both TEs and PTSD are associated with a higher risk of substance use and problems in emotion regulation. Little is known about the associations between specific types of TEs, problems with general self-regulation (including cognitive and behavioral components) and substance use severity in adolescents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!