Body-Related Attitudes, Personality, and Identity in Female Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa or Other Mental Disorders

Melanie Achermann, Juliane Günther, Kirstin Goth, Klaus Schmeck, Simone Munsch and Lars Wöckel
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Melanie Achermann: Center of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Clienia Littenheid AG, 9573 Littenheid, Switzerland
Juliane Günther: Center of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Clienia Littenheid AG, 9573 Littenheid, Switzerland
Kirstin Goth: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Research Department, University Hospital of Psychiatry Basel, University of Basel, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
Klaus Schmeck: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Research Department, University Hospital of Psychiatry Basel, University of Basel, 4002 Basel, Switzerland
Simone Munsch: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, 1701 Fribourg, Switzerland
Lars Wöckel: Center of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Clienia Littenheid AG, 9573 Littenheid, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: The psychological integration of body-related attitudes (BodyRA) is a critical developmental task in adolescence. Adolescents must adapt to their changing body image and body satisfaction. For young people, BodyRA (body dissatisfaction, bulimia, and drive for thinness) are connected to insecurities, which can disturb identity integration and personality development. Our goal was to evaluate the importance of BodyRA also for other mental disorders other than anorexia nervosa (AN), and the association between BodyRA with temperament and personality traits and identity diffusion. Data for the period of 2012 to 2019 were retrospectively analyzed from a convenience sample of patients in a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital ( n = 114). The patients were 13 to 17 years of age and had a BMI of 11.9–36.1 kg/m 2 . As expected, BodyRA were found to be more pronounced in AN, as well as in borderline personality disorder (BPD), depression (DD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). BodyRA correlated significantly with internalizing problems in patients with DD ( r = 0.428–0.565, p < 0.01) and BPD ( r = 0.680, p < 0.01) as well as with BMI ( r = 0.404, p < 0.01) in patients with DD. Moreover, we detected significant correlations with impaired identity development in patients with DD ( r = 0.482–0.565, p < 0.01) and BPD ( r = 0.681–0.703, p < 0.01). BodyRA also correlated significantly with the personality traits of harm avoidance ( r = 0.377–0.541, p < 0.01) and self-directedness ( r = −0.537–−0.635, p < 0.01) in DD. These personality traits and bulimia were used as predictors for identity diffusion in the investigated disorders of this study. We conclude that BodyRA, harm avoidance and self-directedness are associated with identity development in adolescent females with mental disorders.

Keywords: body dissatisfaction; drive for thinness; adolescence; personality; identity; anorexia nervosa; bulimia nervosa; depression; borderline personality disorder; ADHD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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