Zhang, Zuo, Robinson, Lauren, Campbell, Iain, Bobou, Marina, Winterer, Jeanne, Zhang, Yuning, King, Sinead, Vaidya, Nilakshi, Broulidakis, M. John, van Noort, Betteke Maria, Stringaris, Argyris, Banaschewski, Tobias, Bokde, Arun, Bruhl, Rudiger, Fröhner, Juliane H., Grigis, Antoine and Garavan, Hugh (2024) Distinct personality profiles associated with disease risk and diagnostic status in eating disorders. Journal of Affective Disorders, 360 (360), 146-155. (doi:10.1016/j.jad.2024.05.132).
Abstract
Background
Personality traits have been associated with eating disorders (EDs) and comorbidities. However, it is unclear which personality profiles are premorbid risk rather than diagnostic markers.
Methods
We explored associations between personality and ED-related mental health symptoms using canonical correlation analyses. We investigated personality risk profiles in a longitudinal sample, associating personality at age 14 with onset of mental health symptoms at ages 16 or 19. Diagnostic markers were identified in a sample of young adults with anorexia nervosa (AN, n = 58) or bulimia nervosa (BN, n = 63) and healthy controls (n = 47).
Results
Two significant premorbid risk profiles were identified, successively explaining 7.93 % and 5.60 % of shared variance (Rc2). The first combined neuroticism (canonical loading, rs = 0.68), openness (rs = 0.32), impulsivity (rs = 0.29), and conscientiousness (rs = 0.27), with future onset of anxiety symptoms (rs = 0.87) and dieting (rs = 0.58). The other, combined lower agreeableness (rs = −0.60) and lower anxiety sensitivity (rs = −0.47), with future deliberate self-harm (rs = 0.76) and purging (rs = 0.55). Personality profiles associated with “core psychopathology” in both AN (Rc2 = 80.56 %) and BN diagnoses (Rc2 = 64.38 %) comprised hopelessness (rs = 0.95, 0.87) and neuroticism (rs = 0.93, 0.94). For BN, this profile also included impulsivity (rs = 0.60). Additionally, extraversion (rs = 0.41) was associated with lower depressive risk in BN.
Limitations
The samples were not ethnically diverse. The clinical cohort included only females. There was non-random attrition in the longitudinal sample.
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