Objective: Eating disorder (ED) symptoms and transdiagnostic vulnerability characteristics play a crucial role in the aetiology and maintenance of EDs. Over the last decade, researchers have started to model complex interrelations between symptoms using network models, but the literature is limited in that it has focused solely on symptoms and investigated-specific disorders while ignoring transdiagnostic aspects of mental health. Method: This study tackles these challenges by investigating network relations among core ED symptoms, comorbid clinical symptoms (depression and anxiety) and empirically supported vulnerability and protective mechanisms (personality traits, maladaptive cognitive schemata, perfectionism and resilience) in a sample of 2302 treatment-seeking ED patients. We estimated a regularized partial correlation network to obtain conditional dependence relations among all variables. We estimated node centrality (interconnectivity) and node predictability (the overall magnitude of symptom interrelationships). Results: The findings indicate a central role of overvigilance, excessive focus on inhibiting emotions and feelings, interoceptive awareness and perfectionism. Conclusions: These results suggest that excessive control of bodily aspects by dietary restraint (possibly through inhibition) and interoceptive awareness may be important constructs that warrant future research in understanding

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Objective According to Fairburns transdiagnostic model of eating disorders (EDs), high levels of perfectionism and low self‐esteem are two core traits across EDs. This study investigates the role of self‐esteem as a transdiagnostic moderator of the relationship between perfectionism and ED symptoms across EDs. Method A large group of patients (n = 732) completed several questionnaires measuring perfectionism, self‐esteem, and disordered eating symptomatology, more specifically, drive for thinness (DFT) and body dissatisfaction (BD). Results Across EDs, self‐esteem served as a moderator for the association between perfectionism and DFT. However, by testing the model for DFT in each ED separately, the effect only remained in patients with anorexia nervosa and ED not otherwise specified. When testing the model for BD, no moderation effect was found in any of the included EDs. Conclusions This study found that the interaction between perfectionism and self‐esteem on DFT can be seen as transdiagnostic, although this effect is not found in each ED separately. These results suggest that ED treatment should consider to not only focus on transdiagnostic factors but also look at the specific impairments of each individual ED.

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