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Objective: Social cognition as a process of information processing represents the relationship between the self and others. Some recent studies have emphasized the importance of information processing processes in the etiology of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). Although it is not classified as psychiatric disorder, Exogenous Obesity (EO) may present many psychosocial problems as well as medical complications. Many characteristics of the disorder are reported to coincide with those of eating disorders. The scope of our study covers the assessment of the social cognitive skills of 11-18 year-old adolescents with diagnosis of AN and 11-18 year-old adolescents with EO; the identification of common aspects, if any; and the comparison of findings with each other and healthy controls (HC).
Method: The AN-EO groups consisted of patients treated at Ege University. The criterion for the EO diagnosis was defined as having a body-mass index of 30 and above. The social cognitive skills of the cases were assessed using Faces Test, Eyes Test, Hinting Test, Unexpected Outcomes Test, Faux Pas and Comprehension Test.
Results: Our study group consisted of 78 cases, 18 with AN, 30 with EO and 30 HC. The age averages of groups were found as 15.33 for the AN group; 14.57 for the EO group and 14.73 for the HC group (p=0.43). The AN group revealed significant impairments compared to the control group in all tests assessing the social cognitive skills (p<0.001). The cases with AN were observed to perform lower than the cases diagnosed with obesity (p<0.001). The cases with obesity performed significantly lower than the control group in all tests except for the Hinting Test (p<0.001). It was observed that the cases with obesity scored lower than the control group in the Hinting Test, as well; however it did not reach to a level of statistical significance (p=0.63).
Conclusion: This study revealed impairments in social cognitive skills (facial emotion recognition, reading mind in the eyes, faux pas) of the EO and AN groups. EO and HC group did not differ from each other only in Hinting Test. Our findings are compatible with the literature. The studies in literature conducted with the cases diagnosed with an eating disorder show that the cases have difficulties in recognizing and comprehending emotions and reading minds. The studies state that the impaired social functions affect the long-term clinical process. The results of our study revealed the significance of identification of social cognitive functions of the cases and determination of therapy accordingly for a more effective and permanent treatment of the said disorders. Our study approached the EO, which has not been classified as an eating disorder yet, from a different viewpoint; and showed that the social cognitive functions of the cases with the diagnosis of obesity coincided with those of the cases with AN. Furthermore, as far as we can see, our study is the first study in literature to assess the social cognitive functions of the cases with obesity using relevant tests.