Suicidal characteristics of young women with bulimia nervosa
Authors: Gurulyova E.R. , Merinov A.V. 
Published: December 2024

Eating disorders are one of the most unfavorable nosologies in terms of premature mortality, including suicide. Today, there are many studies that focus on studying nervous anorexia and its suicidal potential, which cannot be said about nervous bulimia. Following imposed ideals of beauty, a thin body, melting numbers on the scales, young women often resort to extremely unhealthy methods of solving existing " problems " with the body. Dysmorphomanic experiences associated with dissatisfaction with their appearance, long-term compensatory behavior in combination with a strong deficit in food, provoke stable periods of overeating, which, in turn, stimulates the further development of nervous bulimia. Bright and long-term negative emotions, guilt and shame for your figure and appearance, prolonged overeating, fear of being overweight, unsuccessful attempts to lose weight lead to anti-vital experiences. In combination with low medical care seeking and the absence of clear clinical nosospecific symptoms and manifestations of this disease, we are faced with the lack of timely diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Currently, there is virtually no data on the suicidological characteristics of patients with
nervous bulimia. The aim of the study was to investigate suicidological characteristics of young women with nervous bulimia. Materials and methods. The study involved 195 young women aged 20 to 24 studying at a university. Of these, 40 had a diagnosis of nervous bulimia and were included in the study group. The control group consisted of 155 young women without this diagnosis. The following diagnostic tools were used: a clinical and anamnestic questionnaire aimed at identifying autoaggression patterns in the past and present; the coefficient of
pro-suicidal tension (CPST for the entire anamnesis period and CPST for 2 years); SRQ (suicide risk questionnaire) in the modification of T.N. Razumovskaya. Mathematical processing of data was performed using the SPSS program. Results and discussion. The number of girls seriously considering the possibility of committing suicide in the last two years in the study group was twice as high as in the control group. The same applies to the emotional state of the respondents: girls with nervous bulimia are characterized to a greater extent by an obsessive feeling of guilt (46% versus 16% in the control group), shame (37% in the study group versus 18% in the
control), an acute feeling of loneliness (67% in the study group versus 39% in the control group), a feeling of hopelessness (40% in the study group versus 9% in the control group). Noteworthy is the tendency towards an increase in smoking in the group of girls with nervous bulimia over the last 2 years (15% versus 2% in the control group). Conclusions. The studied group of young women with nervous bulimia represents a very unfavorable and specific category in the context of suicidology, requiring further, close study, this concerns the frequent occurrence of suicidal thoughts, a number of non-suicidal and autoaggressive behavior. The data obtained during
the study indicate the need to pay attention not only to the issues of NB diagnostics at the primary stages of medical care, but also, upon detection of this disease, to consider the possibility of high suicidal risk and autoaggressive behavior.
Keywords: eating disorder, nervous bulimia, suicide attempts, suicide, autoaggression, suicidology