Background: Perceived stress, immature defense style, depression and anxiety and negative life events all are\nknown to be associated with eating disorders. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between\nthese factors and their relative strength of association with eating disorder symptoms over time.\nMethods: This research was embedded in a longitudinal study of adult women with varying levels of eating\ndisorder symptoms and who were initially recruited from tertiary educational institutions in two Australian states.\nFour years from initial recruitment, 371 participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination- Questionnaire\n(EDE-Q) for eating disorder symptoms.\nKessler-10 Psychological Distress Scale (K-10) as a measure of depression and anxiety, a Life Events Checklist as a\nmeasure of previous exposure to potentially traumatic events, the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) and the\nPerceived Stress Scale (PSS) to determine perceived stress. One year later, in year 5, 295 (878.7%) completed follow-up\nassessments including the EDE-Q. The questionnaires were completed online or returned via reply paid post.\nResults: All four independent factors were found to correlate significantly with the global EDE-Q score in\ncross-sectional analyses (all Spearman rho (rs) >0.18, p < 0.01) and at one year follow-up (all rs > 0.15, all p < 0.05). In\nmultivariate linear regression modeling adjusted for age and year 4 global EDE-Q scores, perceived stress and\npsychological distress scores were significantly associated with year 5 global EDE-Q scores (p = 0.046 and <0.001\nrespectively).\nConclusions: Psychological distress, and to a lesser degree perceived stress had the strongest association with\neating disorder symptoms over time The findings support further investigation of interventions to reduce\ndistress and perceived stress in adult females with disordered eating.
Loading....