Antonio Cano Vindel

Emociones y salud

Negative emotions (anxiety, anger and sadness-depression) are adaptive for the individ- ual. However, there are times when pathological reactions can occur due to a poor adjustment in the frequency or intensity. When such maladjust- ment takes place, a health disorder can also arise, be it mental (anxiety disorder, major depression) or physical. First of all, when anxiety, sadness- depression and anger reactions reach highly fre- quent or intense levels, and these are maintained through time, they tend to produce behavior changes, reducing healthy habits (physical exer- cise, etc.) and creating addictive behaviors (smok- ing, etc.) or any other that endangers health. For example, there is a positive relation between anxi- ety and smoking, as well as between smoking and cancer. Secondly, these emotional reactions main- tain intense levels of physiological activation that can deteriorate our health if they become chronic. Hence, patients with essential hypertension, asthma, chronic headaches or different types of dermatitis, show higher levels of anger and anxiety than the general population. Thirdly, this intense physiological activation can be associated to a certain degree of immunodefficiency, making us more vulnerable to the outcome of infectious diseases (flu, herpes, etc.) or immunological ones. Last of all, the suppression or control of these emotional experience can lead to higher levels of physiological activation and a certain degree of immunodefficiency.

Datos psicométricos de la versión abreviada del cuestionario IMAGEN; evaluación de la insatisfacción corporal

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Body dissatisfaction seems to be associated with eating disorders, obesity, decreasing levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. In this study the psychometric properties of a questionnaire to measure body dissatisfaction, the IMAGEN questionnaire, have been obtained. METHOD The samples have been composed of 538 women of ages between 11 and 22 years, 494 out from different schools and 44 out diagnosed of eating disorder from hospital. RESULTS The confirmatory factor analysis reduces the items from 38 in the original version to 25. The model shows a penta-factor structure: a) emotional, with five items; b) fear to gain weight, with four; c) approach to change, with three; d) perceptive, with six; and e) behavioral, with four items. Besides, it has been obtained a second order factor (cognitive-emotional) that includes the a), b) and c) previous factors. The psychometric properties such as internal consistency (alpha from 0.84 to 0.92), discriminative validity (significant difference by group) and convergent validity (significant statistical relation between IMAGE and EDI-2 factors) have been evaluated and some acceptable results have been obtained. In addition to that, the cut-offs for each questionnaire scale were established, implying that high scores in body dissatisfaction are associated with having an eating disorder. The most accurate estimates correspond to the behavioral factor of dissatisfaction (odds ratio 33.2; IC 95% = 15.1-68.3). CONCLUSION From these results it is concluded that the reduced IMAGE questionnaire presents good psychometric properties. However, more research is needed with different samples before generalizing its use.INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Body dissatisfaction seems to be associated with eating disorders, obesity, decreasing levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. In this study the psychometric properties of a questionnaire to measure body dissatisfaction, the IMAGEN questionnaire, have been obtained. METHOD The samples have been composed of 538 women of ages between 11 and 22 years, 494 out from different schools and 44 out diagnosed of eating disorder from hospital. RESULTS The confirmatory factor analysis reduces the items from 38 in the original version to 25. The model shows a penta-factor structure: a) emotional, with five items; b) fear to gain weight, with four; c) approach to change, with three; d) perceptive, with six; and e) behavioral, with four items. Besides, it has been obtained a second order factor (cognitive-emotional) that includes the a), b) and c) previous factors. The psychometric properties such as internal consistency (alpha from 0.84 to 0.92), discriminative validity (significant difference by group) and convergent validity (significant statistical relation between IMAGE and EDI-2 factors) have been evaluated and some acceptable results have been obtained. In addition to that, the cut-offs for each questionnaire scale were established, implying that high scores in body dissatisfaction are associated with having an eating disorder. The most accurate estimates correspond to the behavioral factor of dissatisfaction (odds ratio 33.2; IC 95% = 15.1-68.3). CONCLUSION From these results it is concluded that the reduced IMAGE questionnaire presents good psychometric properties. However, more research is needed with different samples before generalizing its use.