Biomaterial Database

Disgust sensitivity and anorexia nervosa. 2012

Ruth Aharoni, and Marianne M Hertz

Clinic for anxiety and OCD, Mental Health Center, Copenhagen, Denmark. ruth.aharoni.nielsen@regionh.dk

BACKGROUND Previous studies found inconsistent differences in disgust sensitivity between patients with a variety of eating disorders and normal controls. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to compare disgust sensitivity between a larger and more specific sample of anorexia nervosa (AN) patients and control subjects. METHODS We compared the scores on the 'disgust sensitivity scale' of AN patients (N = 62) and control subjects (N = 62) using a multivariate analysis of variance. All subjects were women. RESULTS AN patients scored consistently higher on all domains of disgust sensitivity. This difference was significant for six of eight disgust domains. The largest significant difference between the groups was on the domains food and magical thinking. CONCLUSIONS Our findings elaborate on previous findings and are in line with recent neurological findings suggesting that disgust and insular impairments are associated with AN. Clinical implications of our findings are discussed.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008273	Magic	Beliefs and practices concerned with producing desired results through supernatural forces or agents as with the manipulation of fetishes or rituals.	Magics
D011795	Surveys and Questionnaires	Collections of data obtained from voluntary subjects. The information usually takes the form of answers to questions, or suggestions.	Community Survey,Nonrespondent,Questionnaire,Questionnaires,Respondent,Survey,Survey Method,Survey Methods,Surveys,Baseline Survey,Community Surveys,Methodology, Survey,Nonrespondents,Questionnaire Design,Randomized Response Technique,Repeated Rounds of Survey,Respondents,Survey Methodology,Baseline Surveys,Design, Questionnaire,Designs, Questionnaire,Methods, Survey,Questionnaire Designs,Questionnaires and Surveys,Randomized Response Techniques,Response Technique, Randomized,Response Techniques, Randomized,Survey, Baseline,Survey, Community,Surveys, Baseline,Surveys, Community,Techniques, Randomized Response
D004644	Emotions	Those affective states which can be experienced and have arousing and motivational properties.	Feelings,Regret,Emotion,Feeling,Regrets
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000328	Adult	A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available.	Adults
D000856	Anorexia Nervosa	An eating disorder that is characterized by the lack or loss of APPETITE, known as ANOREXIA. Other features include excess fear of becoming OVERWEIGHT; BODY IMAGE disturbance; significant WEIGHT LOSS; refusal to maintain minimal normal weight; and AMENORRHEA. This disorder occurs most frequently in adolescent females. (APA, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 1994)	Anorexia Nervosas,Nervosa, Anorexia,Nervosas, Anorexia