An investigation of indirect effects of personality features on anorexia nervosa severity through interoceptive dysfunction in individuals with lifetime anorexia nervosa diagnoses.

Objective: This study examined a hypothesized pathway by which interoceptive dysfunction accounted for associations between personality features (harm avoidance, self-directedness, and perfectionism) and anorexia nervosa (AN) severity (indicated by drive for thinness, eating disorder-related preoccupations and rituals, and body mass index).

Method: The study sample (n = 270, mean age = 28.47, 95.

The role of leptin, melanocortin, and neurotrophin system genes on body weight in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Objective: Although low weight is a key factor contributing to the high mortality in anorexia nervosa (AN), it is unclear how AN patients sustain low weight compared with bulimia nervosa (BN) patients with similar psychopathology. Studies of genes involved in appetite and weight regulation in eating disorders have yielded variable findings, in part due to small sample size and clinical heterogeneity. This study: (1) assessed the role of leptin, melanocortin, and neurotrophin genetic variants in conferring risk for AN and BN; and (2) explored the involvement of these genes in body mass index (BMI) variations within AN and BN.

Evidence for the role of EPHX2 gene variants in anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) and related eating disorders are complex, multifactorial neuropsychiatric conditions with likely rare and common genetic and environmental determinants. To identify genetic variants associated with AN, we pursued a series of sequencing and genotyping studies focusing on the coding regions and upstream sequence of 152 candidate genes in a total of 1205 AN cases and 1948 controls. We identified individual variant associations in the Estrogen Receptor-ß (ESR2) gene, as well as a set of rare and common variants in the Epoxide Hydrolase 2 (EPHX2) gene, in an initial sequencing study of 261 early-onset severe AN cases and 73 controls (P=0.

Post-traumatic growth as outcome of a cognitive-behavioural therapy trial for motor vehicle accident survivors with PTSD.

Objectives: Treatment effects on post-traumatic growth (PTG) and its subdomains were investigated together with predictors of the Janus-face model of PTG.

Design: Effects were investigated within a randomized controlled trial of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Method: Forty motor vehicle accident survivors were randomly assigned to a treatment or waiting condition.

Posttraumatic growth in accident survivors: openness and optimism as predictors of its constructive or illusory sides.

Posttraumatic growth (PTG), the phenomenon of self-reported positive outcomes of trauma, is assumed to consist of two sides: a constructive and an illusory side. This study investigates the relationship between PTG and its possible illusory and constructive predictors, as well as the moderating role of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity. One-hundred two motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors with full, subsyndromal, and without PTSD were assessed by multiple psychometric measures targeting PTSD severity, posttraumatic growth, optimism, and openness to experience.

Posttraumatic growth in clinical psychology - a critical review and introduction of a two component model.

Positive psychological or personal changes in the aftermath of trauma, defined as the result of the struggle with highly stressful events, have recently elicited heightened attention by trauma researchers. This article aims at summarizing the most important theoretical models and conceptualizations of posttraumatic growth (PTG) and addresses the issue of the adaptive significance of this phenomenon. It further renders a thorough empirical review of the relationship between PTG and psychological adjustment.

The classification of multiple somatoform symptoms.

This study evaluated the concordance among different approaches to diagnose patients with multiple somatoform symptoms. Inpatients (N = 108) of a center for behavioral medicine were diagnosed using a structured clinical interview. Somatization disorder according to DSM-IV and ICD-10 was as rare as somatization disorder according to DSM-III-R.

What does the Toronto Alexithymia Scale TAS-R measure?

One hundred seventy four inpatients of a psychosomatic hospital were examined with the revised version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale TAS-R, as well as further measures of emotionality, somatization, psychopathology and personality. A significant association was found between TAS alexithymia and the number of somatoform symptoms. This association, however, disappeared when it was corrected for the possible impact of depression.