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Core beliefs in bulimia nervosa and depression: the discriminant validity of Young's Schema Questionnaire

Core beliefs in bulimia nervosa and depression: the discriminant validity of Young's Schema Questionnaire
Core beliefs in bulimia nervosa and depression: the discriminant validity of Young's Schema Questionnaire
It has been suggested that depression and bulimia nervosa share common patterns of core beliefs, despite their differences in more superficial levels of cognition (negative automatic thoughts; dysfunctional assumptions). Although recent research appears to support this proposal, its methodological limitations precluded the ability to assess potentially important differences in core beliefs across the groups. The present study addresses those limitations, assessing a broad range of core beliefs among five groups: nonclinical women, nondepressed bulimics, mildly depressed bulimics, severely depressed bulimics, and major depressive disorder patients. Young's Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) was used as the measure of core beliefs. All of the clinical groups reported less healthy core beliefs than the comparison women, but the major depressive disorder patients and the severely depressed bulimics had more unhealthy core beliefs than the nondepressed bulimics. Multivariate analysis demonstrated differences between all five groups, including the depressed patients and the severely depressed bulimics. These findings support the discriminant validity of the YSQ, suggesting that bulimia and depression are differentiated by core beliefs as well as by more superficial cognitive representations. These preliminary results suggest that the YSQ may be a clinically useful measure of schema-level representations in these disorders, although it will also be necessary to consider the role of schema process in different disorders. If the role of core beliefs in depression and bulimia is confirmed in future research, then there may be a need to adapt cognitive-behavioral treatments for these disorders accordingly.
0005-7894
139-153
Waller, Glenn
8f917a34-f50f-4703-a50f-dc9a9a6fc24b
Shah, Rajshree
52713e94-27cc-4c64-b67d-0f4d1881e0be
Ohanian, Vartouhi
652313e0-f92d-47a7-aa4b-cbc4ddeb1da7
Elliott, Peter
5822a831-b8e7-440d-9b0d-81721337a3e2
Waller, Glenn
8f917a34-f50f-4703-a50f-dc9a9a6fc24b
Shah, Rajshree
52713e94-27cc-4c64-b67d-0f4d1881e0be
Ohanian, Vartouhi
652313e0-f92d-47a7-aa4b-cbc4ddeb1da7
Elliott, Peter
5822a831-b8e7-440d-9b0d-81721337a3e2

Waller, Glenn, Shah, Rajshree, Ohanian, Vartouhi and Elliott, Peter (2001) Core beliefs in bulimia nervosa and depression: the discriminant validity of Young's Schema Questionnaire. Behavior Therapy, 32 (1), 139-153.

Record type: Article

Abstract

It has been suggested that depression and bulimia nervosa share common patterns of core beliefs, despite their differences in more superficial levels of cognition (negative automatic thoughts; dysfunctional assumptions). Although recent research appears to support this proposal, its methodological limitations precluded the ability to assess potentially important differences in core beliefs across the groups. The present study addresses those limitations, assessing a broad range of core beliefs among five groups: nonclinical women, nondepressed bulimics, mildly depressed bulimics, severely depressed bulimics, and major depressive disorder patients. Young's Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) was used as the measure of core beliefs. All of the clinical groups reported less healthy core beliefs than the comparison women, but the major depressive disorder patients and the severely depressed bulimics had more unhealthy core beliefs than the nondepressed bulimics. Multivariate analysis demonstrated differences between all five groups, including the depressed patients and the severely depressed bulimics. These findings support the discriminant validity of the YSQ, suggesting that bulimia and depression are differentiated by core beliefs as well as by more superficial cognitive representations. These preliminary results suggest that the YSQ may be a clinically useful measure of schema-level representations in these disorders, although it will also be necessary to consider the role of schema process in different disorders. If the role of core beliefs in depression and bulimia is confirmed in future research, then there may be a need to adapt cognitive-behavioral treatments for these disorders accordingly.

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Published date: 2001

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 18518
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18518
ISSN: 0005-7894
PURE UUID: 4132c462-ec16-484c-9334-bfae61d574cf

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Date deposited: 12 Dec 2005
Last modified: 08 Jan 2022 03:45

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Contributors

Author: Glenn Waller
Author: Rajshree Shah
Author: Vartouhi Ohanian
Author: Peter Elliott

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