Table 1.
Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, duration of disease and subtypes of anorexia nervosa of the anorexia nervosa study population.
Fig 1.
GAD-7, PHQ-9, PSQ-20 and EDI-2 scores and plasma NUCB2/nesfatin-1 levels in anorexic patients.
Patients with high anxiety displayed significantly higher NUCB2/nesfatin-1 levels compared to those with low anxiety (A). This resulted in a positive correlation of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 with anxiety in the whole anorexic patient sample (B), whereas depression scores (C), perceived stress scores (D) and eating disorder symptoms (E) did not correlate with plasma NUCB2/nesfatin-1. Differences between groups were calculated using t-tests. Data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation. * p < 0.05. Distribution of the data was determined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Correlations were determined by Pearson’s or Spearman’s analyses depending on the distribution of the data. Values for r and p are indicated in the graph. Abbreviations: EDI-2, eating disorder inventory; GAD-7, general anxiety disorder questionnaire; NUCB2, nucleobindin2; PHQ-9, patient health questionnaire depression; PSQ-20, perceived stress questionnaire.
Table 2.
Correlation of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 plasma levels with demographic and psychometric parameters of the anorexia nervosa study population (n = 64).
Fig 2.
PHQ-9 and PSQ-20 scores of anorexic patients with low versus high anxiety.
Patients with high anxiety scores displayed higher total scores in PHQ-9 (A) and PSQ-20 (B). Similarly, the PSQ-20 subscales differed between the two groups with higher scores for “worries” (C), “tension” (D) and “demands” (E) and lower scores for “joy” (F) in the high versus low anxiety group. Differences between groups were calculated using t-tests. Data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation. *** p < 0.001. Abbreviations: PHQ-9, patient health questionnaire; PSQ-20, perceived stress questionnaire.
Fig 3.
EDI-2 scores of anorexic patients with low versus high anxiety.
Patients with high anxiety scores displayed a higher EDI-2 total score (A) and higher values of the subscales “perfectionism” (E), “ineffectiveness” (G) and “interoceptive awareness” (H) compared to those with low anxiety, while the subscales “drive for thinness” (B), “bulimia” (C), “body dissatisfaction” (D), “interpersonal distrust” (F) and “maturity fears” (I) did not differ between the two groups. Differences between groups were calculated using t-tests. Data are expressed as mean ± standard deviation. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 and *** p < 0.001. Abbreviations: EDI-2, eating disorder inventory.