Investigation of the relationship between adult separation anxiety and eating disorders

Eating disorders usually begin in adolescence or in young adulthood and their prevalence has increased in recent years. It constitute one of the most important psychiatric diseases. Recently, separation anxiety disorder, which was considered a childhood disorder, was included in DSM-5 as a life-long diagnosis that includes all age groups. In this study, the relationship between eating disorders and adult separation anxiety was evaluated. This study started in 2020 that it consists of men and women between the ages of 18-65. The sample of the study consists of 444 volunteers in total and 338 (76.1%) of these people are female and 106 (23.9%) of these are male. Volunteers participated in this study with a simple-random sampling model. In the research; Informed Consent Form, Sociodemographic Data Form, Eating Disorder Rating Scale, Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire were used. Eating disorder scores and adult separation anxiety scores of the participants in this study were examined. It was examined whether the scores of this scale differ according to certain characteristics. It was compared whether the participants' eating disorder scores differ according to their sociodemographic characteristics. In this study, the correlation between the participants' eating disorder scores and separation anxiety scores was examined. As a result, according to the findings obtained from the study, when the correlations between the Eating Disorder Rating Scale sub-dimension and total scores and the "Adult Separation Anxiety Scale" total scores were examined; A positive, weak-moderate, statistically significant correlation was found between the "Concerns About Body Shape" sub-dimension score and the "Adult Separation Anxiety Scale" total score. The correlations between the "Eating Disorder Rating Scale" other sub-dimension scores and total score and the "Adult Separation Anxiety Scale" total score were positive, weak, and statistically significant. A significant difference was observed between the total score and sub-scores of the eating disorder rating scale and the adult separation anxiety scale. The findings obtained from the research were interpreted and discussed within the framework of the related literature.