title: Emotional perception in patients with eating disorders in comparison with depressed patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Emotion regulation is a key issue for many psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders, including eating disorders. Eating disordered patients (EDP) show high levels of depressive comorbidity, and there is much uncertainty about disorder-specific deficits. This study is aimed at delineating disorder-specific disturbances of emotional perception in EDP.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-two EDP were compared with 35 depressed patients (DP) and 25 healthy controls. They rated their emotional experience when viewing visual emotional stimuli. Emphasis was placed on the patients' perception of their own emotions and not on the recognition of emotions in others. Severity of depression was assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eating disordered patients and DP reported less anger than healthy controls-independent of the severity of depression. In addition, DP showed increased levels of disgust when confronted with anger stimuli. Happiness was rated less in EDP and DP, which was associated with severity of depression. There were no differences between the EDP subgroups bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Eating disordered patients and DP showed alterations of emotional perception of anger, an emotion which is closely linked to interpersonal difficulties. Alterations in emotional perception of EDP and DP might be due to more general emotion regulation disturbances. In order to detect more subtle differences between psychiatric subgroups, more sophisticated investigation tools are needed. Increased disgust ratings in DP merit further investigation.
authors.affiliation: University of Freiburg, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Germany. andreas.joos@uniklinik‐freiburg.de
authors.forename: Andreas A B
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Joos
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gille
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hartmann
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Unterbrink
authors.forename: Edda
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wetzler-Burmeister
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scheidt
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Waller
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wirsching
authors.forename: Almut
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zeeck
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires