Guilt and hostility as coexisting characteristics of bulimia nervosa

Bulimia nervosa has recently emerged as a major mental health problem. Buli mics, usually women, suffer episodes of uncontrollable eating following by purging and/or vomiting behaviours to rid themselves of the food, Previous work has examined the role of hostility in binge-purge behaviour, and clini cal observation has noted the presence of strong guilt feelings. Most studi es of hostility have used the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Question naire, Very little work has been done on the role of guilt in bulimia, Stud ies of both guilt and hostility in bulimia were absent. This study used the Buss-Durkee Inventory (1957) to compare a clinical sample of bulimic women (n = 17) with nonbulimic female students (n = 20) on guilt and overt and c overt hostility. As predicted, bulimics scored significantly higher than st udents on guilt, one-tailed t(35) = 7.17, p<.05, and covert hostility, one- tailed t(34)= 5.23, p <.05, but did not differ on overt hostility. A distin ctive pattern of associations between measures of guilt, covert hostility, and eating behaviours was found for the bulimic women. These results sugges ted that women with high guilt and covert hostility might be more susceptib le to bulimia than women who were less guilty or hostile. Longitudinal stud ies examining these variables throughout the teenage and young adulthood ye ars would clarify the roles of guilt and covert hostility as possible etiol ogical factors for bulimia.