BULIMIA NERVOSA AND THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN: A STUDY OF VALUES, COHESION, ADAPTABILITY, THE USE OF VERBAL/SYMBOLIC AGGRESSION AND SEVERITY OF DAUGHTER'S BULIMIC SYMPTOMS.
Contributors: University of Rochester.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 223
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Clinical.; Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.
Description: While many clinicians have argued that eating disorders are associated with specific family dynamics, systematic research is limited. Nathan Ackerman (1958) argued that psychiatric disturbances are more likely to arise when a family, unable to effect balanced relations, holds an extreme identity or enacts extreme roles. This study was guided by Ackerman's views toward an examination of the families of young women with bulimia nervosa.

A convenience sample of 36 families was used, as represented by 36 young women with bulimia nervosa (mean age 20.5), 31 mothers (or mothering figures) and 25 fathers (or fathering figures). Participants complete The Value Survey (Rokeach, 1973), the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales III (Olson, McCubbin, Barnes, Larsen, Muxen & Wilson, 1985), and the Conflict Tactic Scales (Straus, 1990). Daughters completed a Severity of Bulimic Symptoms Questionnaire (Aronson, 1986).

Nonparametric correlation coefficients were used to examine statistical associations between family scores on the following variables: (1) degree to which member's hold similar values, (2) importance assigned to the values of independence and family security, (3) degree to which cohesion is extreme, (4) the degree to which adaptability is extreme, (5) the use of verbal/symbolic aggression, and (6) severity of daughter's bulimic symptoms. Chi-square statistics were used to compare study family scores to normative family scores.

A statistically significant association between the degree to which family cohesion was extreme and the degree to which family adaptability was extreme was found. No other statistically significant associations were found between model variables using family scores. However, the model was found to be more useful when individual and dyadic scores were used. In comparisons between study scores and normative scores, one statistically significant difference was found: study families were lower in cohesion than families from a national, representative sample.

Findings suggest a need for future investigations of the families of women with bulimia nervosa that address low family cohesion, the father-daughter relationship, and a lower than normative parental use of verbal/symbolic aggression. Nurses working with young women with bulimia nervosa are encouraged to offer comprehensive family assessments that address the individual, dyadic, and group family level.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-02, Section: B, page: 0369.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, 1993.

School code: 0188.