P02-314 - Temperament and Character in Outpatients with Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa

Abstract

Objectives

The aim of this study is to assess the personality traits in a sample of Spanish anorexic and bulimic outpatients.

Method

The revised version of the Temperament and Character Inventory was administered to 76 women attended in an Eating Disorders Unit and to 46 healthy controls. Both groups were matched by gender, age and instruction.

Results

Diagnoses in the sample were distributed as follows: bulimia nervosa (BN) 33, binging-purging type anorexia nervosa (BPAN) 23 and restricting anorexia nervosa (RAN) 18. RAN patients were significantly younger (21.6 vs. 26.3 p < 0.01). Differences in the harm avoidance, persistence and selfdirectedness subscales of the TCI were found (see table).

	RAN	BPAN	BN	C	p
Novelty seeking	89.3	97.3	99.6	97.4	0.15	n. s.
Harm avoidance	116.1	118.3	118	104.4	0.002	BPAN, BN > C
Reward dependence	112.5	111.7	103.7	110.5	0.12	n. s.
Persistence	120.7	113.7	108.4	102.9	0.005	RAN > C
Selfdirectedness	125.5	120.8	117	149.5	< 0.001	C > RAN, BPAN, BN
Cooperativeness	141.4	145.9	138.3	142.9	0.34	n. s.
Selftranscendence	63.8	67.2	66.9	59.5	0.17	n. s.

[Results]

Conclusions

In concordance with previous reports, compared with healthy controls, patients show lower scores in self-directedness. Persistence seems to be associated with restricting behaviours, whereas harm avoidance with binging and purging. RAN trends to have low scores in novelty seeking items and BN shows lower reward dependence, but this differences are not statistically significant, perhaps because of sample size.