A BODY TO NOT FEEL DYSPHORIA IN FEEDING AND EATING DISORDERS: SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC AND CLINICAL CORRELATES OF DYSPHORIA IN FEEDING AND EATING DISORDERS.

Background: Food-related problems in Feeding and Eating Disorders (hereafter referred to as eating disorders - EDs) might be considered as the expression of dysfunctional individual and relational patterns based on emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Dysphoria is a transnosographic syndrome found in a multitude of psychiatric disorders including EDs, our cross-sectional study aims to analyze its presence in Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN) and Binge Eating Disorder (BED) to define its socio-demographic, clinical correlates and phenomenological expression in the three types of EDs.

Subjects and methods: A total of 165 patients were recruited from March 2019 to November 2024. Anamnestic history was collected through a specific form. The Italian version of the Nepean Dysphoria Scale (NDS-I) was used to evaluate Dysphoria. After performing descriptive analyses, one-way ANOVA and Pearson's r test were performed to respectively assess between-group differences and correlations. Significance was defined as p<0.05.

Results: AN presented the highest degree of Dysphoria than the three, BED the lowest. Older age, physical illnesses and ongoing medical therapy correlated with lower levels of Dysphoria. A Statistically significant positive correlation was found in smoking habits, association with another psychiatric disorder, especially with anxiety disorder, use of benzodiazepines (BDZ) and use of antipsychotics (AP).

Conclusions: Dysphoria acquires fundamental importance within EDs, possibly having a specific role in the etiology and maintenance of eating behaviors, it might play a core role in this type of mental disorder, with the behavioral aspect aimed at reducing dysphoric anxiety. Understanding these connections could represent a useful tool for the comprehension of EDs, which are increasing and have always represented a great diagnostic and therapeutic challenge.