Psihološka prilagodba i sociokulturni stavovi u adolescentica s anoreksijom nervozom [Psychological maladjustment and sociocultural attitudes towards appearance in adolescents with anorexia nervosa]

Anorexia nervosa is severe psychiatric disorder with the high mortality rate and represents a significant psychiatric, pediatric and public-scientific problem. The treatment is long-lasting, followed by a series of complications, and a deathly outcome. Although most commonly occurs in adolescence, there is an increasing incidence of this disease in the pre-puberty age. This research comprehensively approaches anorexia nervosa as an entity whose development and maintenance are influenced by biological, psychological and socio-cultural factors. The study included 122 subjects, 62 subjects with restrictive type anorexia and 60 subjects in the control group. Adolescent with AN-R were divided into two groups, younger ( 14 years). The following questionnaires were used in the survey: General and Health Data Questionnaire, Inventory of Eating disoreders-3 (EDI-3), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Basic Empathy Scale (BES), Socio-cultural attitudes towards physical appearance-3 (SATAQ-3). The aim of the study included the risk factors for eating disorder, and the comparison of the results between patients with anorexia nervosa and control group in terms of general psychological maladaptation, empathy, attachment style, and sociocultural attitudes towards physical appearance. The difference between younger and older adolescents with AN-R on these variables was investigated, as well as the correlation between psychological and socio-cultural factors with a risk for developing eating disorder. Finally, the aim was to examine the predictors of risk for developing eating disorders. Research findings confirm that there is a statistically significant difference between patients with anorexia nervosa and healthy group due to psychological and socio-cultural factors. Girls with AN-R have lower self-esteem, greater personal alienation, social insecurity, social alienation, interoceptive difficulties, perfectionism and asceticism, body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, emotional regulation difficulties, and higher prevalence of insecure and avoiding attachment style. Additionally, girls with AN-R have greater thin internalization and social pressures to be slim. In older adolescents with AN-R there are more those with interoceptive difficulties and with emotional regulation difficulties, compared to young adolescent with AN-R. Insecure attachment style, emotional regulation, and psychological maladjustment are significant predictors of risk for developing eating disorders in girls with AN-R. In the final model, only psychological maladjustemnt has proved to be a significant predictor and shows a 50.4% variation of risk for eating disorders development. Insecure and avoiding attachment, social attitudes towards physical appearance and psychological maladjustment have been shown as significant predictors of the risk of developing eating disorders in the control group. In the final model, significant predicor was psychological maladjustemnt and social attitudes toeards physical appearance, with more than 64,7% of the eating disorder risk comosite variance explained