Investigation of the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and emotion regulation and alexithymia in adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders

The aim of this study is to investigation of the relationship between exposure to adverse and positive childhood experiences, emotional regulation skills and alexithymia characteristics of adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders, also to compare with the eating disorder recovery group and the clinical control group. The study was performed in the outpatient unit of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department at Dokuz Eylul University Hospital, with 80 adolescents. Three groups were formed: 32 adolescents with ED, 16 adolescents with ED in the past, and 32 adolescents matched with them in terms of psychiatric comorbidities. Diagnosis of the participants was made with the K-SADS-PL-DSM-5 and a sociodemographic data form was filled in for each patient. Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised Form (CDRS-R), Clinical Global Impressions-Severity Index (CGI-SI) form were applied to all participants. Adolescents were asked to fill out the self-report scales, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnare(EDE-Q), the Alexithymia Scale for Children(ASC), Adolescents' Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The number of positive chıldhood experıences(PCE) was found to be higher in the control group than in the eating disorder group; however, no statistically significant difference was found between the groups in terms of the number of adverse childhood experiences(ACE). Emotional neglect was detected more frequently in the group diagnosed with an eating disorder at any time than in the control group. When the ED group and the control group were compared, internal maladaptive ER strategies and difficulty in identifying emotions were significantly more common in the ED group. In the ED group, there was a positive moderate relationship between ACE and internal maladaptive ER strategies and the ASC-whole score; A negative moderate relationship was found between PCE and internal maladaptive ER strategies and ASC-difficulty explaining emotions, and a positive moderate relationship was found between external adaptive strategies.