title: Are personality disturbances in anorexia nervosa related to emotion processing or eating disorder symptomatology?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness associated with a number of personality disturbances. However, whether these personality characteristics are related to eating disorder symptomatology or emotion regulation is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate these relationships.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-four individuals with AN and 25 age- and premorbid intelligence-matched controls completed the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire, and scores were correlated with measures of emotionality and negative mood states, and eating disorder symptomatology. AN was associated with increased scores on schizoid, borderline, avoidant, dependent, obsessive compulsive, negativistic and depressive personality dimensions, relative to controls. In AN, eating disorder symptomatology did not significantly correlate with scores on any personality dimension. However, a number of personality characteristics were found to correlate with negative mood states.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that personality disturbances in AN are not related to disorder-specific symptoms, but are related to negative mood states.
authors.affiliation: Department of Optometry & Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia ; Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia ; Department of Mental Health, The Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Australia ; Department of Mental Health, St Vincent's Hospital, 46 Nicholson St, Fitzroy, VIC 3065 Australia.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Phillipou
authors.affiliation: Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gurvich
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia ; Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia ; Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: David Jonathan
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Castle
authors.affiliation: Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia ; Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia ; Department of Psychiatry, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Susan Lee
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Rossell