Emotion regulation in adolescents with anorexia and bulimia nervosa: Differential use of adaptive and maladaptive strategies compared to healthy adolescents

Objective: Adolescents with anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) often struggle with emotion regulation (ER). These difficulties have predominantly been assessed across emotions, without considering adaptive and maladaptive ER separately.We compared adolescents with AN or BN to healthy adolescents (HCs) regarding the adaptive and maladaptive ER of three emotions. Methods: A treatment-seeking sample of 197 adolescents (atypical/full-threshold AN: N = 118, atypical/full-threshold BN: N = 32; HC: N = 47) reported emotion-specific ER with the FEEL-KJ questionnaire. Mixed models were calculated for adaptive and maladaptive ER to assess differences between emotions (anxiety, anger, sadness) and…