Association of family environment and personality disturbances in bulimia nervosa

Abstract

This study investigated the association between family environmental characteristics and the psychological characteristics of bulimia nervosa. Fifty-eight subjects meeting DSM III-R criteria for bulimia nervosa comprised the subject pool for this study. Subjects were administered the Family Environment Scale (FES) to assess family environmental variables, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) to assess personality characteristics, and the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) to assess eating disorder symptomatology. A canonical correlation based on factor analyses of the FES, MCMI, and EDI was used to determine associations between family environmental characteristics and personalityleating disorder characteristics. This analysis showed that a restrictive and conflictual family environment high in parental control was associated with neuroticism and introversion. A second canonical correlation showed an association between a stimulating, achievement-oriented family environment and extroversion, paranoid thinking and perfectionism. Implications of these findings were discussed in the context of previous research related to family background and psychopathology associated with bulimia nervosa.