The Relationship between Personality Characteristics, Body Image Concern and Alexithymia with Eating Disorder of Nursing Students

Eating disorder is one of the most alarming public health issues that is rising rapidly. Therefore, present research aimed to investigate the relationship of personality characteristics, body image concern and alexithymia with eating disorder of nursing students. This research was a cross-sectional from type of correlation. The population included all nursing students of Islamic Azad University of Ahvaz branch in 2016-17 academic years that from them 190 person were selected through simple random sampling method. All nursing students completed the questionnaires of personality characteristics, body image concern, Toronto alexithymia and eating disorder. Data was analyzed with using of SPSS-19 software and with Pearson correlation and multiple regression with enter model. The results showed neuroticism (r = 0.226), conscientiousness (r = 0.194), body image concern (r = 0.451) and alexithymia (r = 0.392) had a positive and significant relationship with eating disorder and extroversion (r = -0.217) and agreeableness (r = -0.313) had a negative and significant relationship with eating disorder (P < 0.01). The predictor variables means personality characteristics, body image concern and alexithymia significantly can predict 38/9 percent of variance of eating disorder of nursing students (R2 = 0.389) that in this model the body image concern have a most role in the predicting of eating disorder of nursing students (β = 0.550). The results indicated the importance of personality characteristics, body image concern and alexithymia in predicting eating disorder of nursing students. Therefore, officials and planers are paying attention to the symptoms of these variables and design and implement appropriate programs to reduce the eating disorder of nursing students