Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan.
J Psychosom Res. 2012 Jan;72(1):65-72. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.06.003. Epub 2011 Jul 20.
The implications of impulsivity in its relationship with binge-eating or purging behaviors remain unclear. This study examined the patterns of eating behaviors and co-morbid impulsive behaviors in individuals with bulimia nervosa n optimally homogeneous classes using latent class analysis (LCA).
All participants (n=180) were asked to complete a series of self-reported inventories of impulsive behaviors and other psychological measures. Information regarding the lifetime presence of symptoms of eating disorder was assessed by clinical interviews. LCA was conducted using eating disorder symptoms, impulsive behaviors, and the number of purging methods.
Three latent classes of bulimic women were identified. These were women who exhibited relatively higher rates of purging, symptoms of impulsive behavior, and multiple purging methods (17.8%), women who used no more than one purging method with a low occurrence of impulsive behavior (41.7%), and women who showed higher rates of purging behaviors and the use of multiple purging methods with a low rate of impulsive behavior (41.7%). The impulsive sub-group had comparable severity of eating-related measures, frequency of binge-eating, and higher levels of general psychopathology than that of the other two sub-groups.
This study provides empirical support for the existence of an impulsive subgroup with distinctive features among a non-Western group of BN patients. This study also suggests that mechanisms other than impulse dysregulation may exist for the development of binge-eating and purging behaviors in bulimia nervosa patients, or the mechanisms contributing to binge-eating and impulsive behaviors may be different.
冲动与其与暴食或清除行为之间的关系的含义仍不清楚。本研究使用潜在类别分析（LCA）在最佳同质类别中检查了神经性贪食症个体的进食行为模式和共发性冲动行为。
所有参与者（n=180）均被要求完成一系列冲动行为和其他心理测量的自我报告清单。通过临床访谈评估饮食障碍症状的终生存在情况。使用饮食障碍症状、冲动行为和清除方法的数量进行 LCA。
确定了三种暴食症女性的潜在类别。这些是表现出相对较高的清除率、冲动行为症状和多种清除方法的女性（17.8％），使用不超过一种清除方法且冲动行为发生率较低的女性（41.7％），以及表现出较高清除率的女性和冲动行为发生率较低的多种清除方法（41.7％）。冲动亚组的饮食相关措施严重程度、暴食频率以及一般心理病理水平与其他两个亚组相当。
这项研究为存在冲动亚组提供了实证支持，在非西方人群的 BN 患者中存在具有独特特征的冲动亚组。这项研究还表明，在神经性贪食症患者中，除了冲动失调机制外，可能还存在导致暴食和清除行为的其他机制，或者导致暴食和冲动行为的机制可能不同。
