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Unmitigated communion and health among adolescents with and without diabetes: the mediating role of eating disturbances.

Helgeson VS, Escobar O, Siminerio L, Becker D

Psychology Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA. vh2e@andrew.cmu.edu

The authors examined the implications of unmitigated communion--a focus on others to the exclusion of the self--for psychological and physical health among adolescents with (n = 132) and without (n = 131) diabetes times/during a 1-year period. Unmitigated communion predicted greater psychological distress and lower levels of competence cross-sectionally and longitudinally, controlling for sex, pubertal status, and communion. Health status moderated some longitudinal relations, such that relations held only for adolescents with diabetes. In addition, unmitigated communion was associated with poor metabolic control and predicted a deterioration in metabolic control over the year for adolescents with diabetes. Unmitigated communion also was associated with disturbed eating behavior cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and disturbed eating behavior explained some of the relations of unmitigated communion to psychological but not physical health outcomes.

Published 2 April 2007 in Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 33(4): 519-36.
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