Pro-Ana websites and its impact on the quality of life of anorexic patients

Tese de mestrado, Doenças Metabólicas e Comportamento Alimentar, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Medicina, 2016 ; Pro-ana websites have been growing in number and popularity. These websites promote anorexia nervosa as a lifestyle rather than a disease. Consequently, it tends to negatively affect the quality of life of visitors. Aiming to better understand the associations between pro-ana website usage and the quality of life of anorexic patients, the goal of this study was to identify a path of influence between pro-ana website usage and the quality of life of visitors. Hence, this study proposed the following model (Pro-Ana Website Usage → Dietary Restraint → Body Dissatisfaction → Self-Esteem → Quality of Life). Another goal of this study was to compare patients who visit pro-ana websites to patients who do not visit it, regarding different psychological variables as quality of life, eating disordered behaviors, body dissatisfaction, psychosocial impairment and self-esteem. Fifty Portuguese female anorexic patients participated in this study. In order to collect data, it was used a demographic and clinical questionnaire and 5 other scales (WHOQOL-BREF, RSES, BSQ, CIA and EDE-Q). Our results showed that body dissatisfaction, psychosocial impairment and eating disordered behaviors levels were higher for patients who visit pro-ana websites compared to patients who do not visit it. In addition, quality of life was lower for patients who visit pro-ana websites compared to patients who do not visit it. Regarding self-esteem, our results showed no significant difference between the 2 groups of patients. Besides that, our study found that the indirect effect of proana website usage on quality of life passes through dietary restraint, body dissatisfaction and self-esteem. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the use of pro-ana websites is related to higher levels of body dissatisfaction, psychosocial impairment and eating disordered behaviors, and to lower levels of quality of life. Furthermore, the ...