RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: While growing literature is stressing the link between Autistic Traits (AT) and trauma-/stress-related disorders, in both conditions significant differences have been separately reported. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the relationship between AT and trauma-/stress-related symptoms with respect to sex. METHODS: 178 university students were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5, the Trauma and Loss Spectrum (TALS) and the Adult Autism Subthreshold Spectrum (AdAS). In order to evaluate sex differences in trauma-/stress-related symptoms among subjects with higher or lower AT, the sample was split in two groups with an equal number of subjects on the basis of the median score reported on AdAS Spectrum ("AdAS high scorers" and "AdAS low scorers"). RESULTS: Females reported significantly higher TALS total score, Loss events and Grief reaction domain scores than males in the whole sample, while AdAS high scorers reported significantly higher TALS total and domain scores than AdAS low scorers. A significant interaction between high/low AdAS score and sex emerged for TALS domains, with females scoring significantly higher than males only among AdAS low scorers, specifically on Loss events, Grief reaction, Re-experiencing and Personal characteristics/Risk factors domains. Finally, among AdAS high scorers a significantly higher rate of subjects fulfilled symptomatological criteria for PTSD than among AdAS low scorers, without sex differences. CONCLUSION: Our results confirm a significant relationship between AT and trauma-/stress-related symptoms, which seems to prevail on sex differences among high-risk subjects.
RESUMEN
AIMS: Orthorexia nervosa (ON) has been recently defined as a pathological approach to feeding related to healthiness concerns and purity of food and/or feeding habits. This condition recently showed an increasing prevalence particularly among young adults. In order to investigate the prevalence of ON and its relationship with gender and nutritional style among young adults, we explored a sample of students from the University of Pisa, Italy. METHODS: Assessments included the ORTO-15 questionnaire and a socio-demographic and eating habits form. Subjects were dichotomized for eating habits (i.e. standard vs vegetarian/vegan diet), gender, parents' educational level, type of high school attended, BMI (low vs high vs normal BMI). Chi square tests were performed to compare rates of subjects with overthreshold ORTO-15 scores, and Student's unpaired t test to compare mean scores between groups. Two Classification tree analyses with CHAID growing method were employed to identify the variables best predicting ON and ORTO-15 total score. RESULTS: more than one-third of the sample showed ON symptoms (ORTO-15 ≥ 35), with higher rates among females. Tree analyses showed diet type to predict ON and ORTO-15 total score more than gender. CONCLUSIONS: Our results seem to corroborate recent data highlighting similarities between ON and anorexia nervosa (AN). We propose an interpretation of ON as a phenotype of AN in the broader context of Feeding and eating disorders (FEDs) spectrum.