The purpose of this study was to compare bulimia nervosa (BN) and substance use disorders (SUD) in cognitive-motivational terms. The cognitive orientation theory was used as a framework for testing the hypothesis that the commonality between BN and SUD consists of a similar motivational disposition for eating disorders, rather than for addiction, as was previously claimed. It was expected that BN and SUD patients would differ from controls but not from each other. The participants were 31 BN, 20 SUD, and 20 healthy controls. They were administered questionnaires for assessing anxiety, depression, addiction and the cognitive orientation for eating disorders. On most parameters BN and SUD scored higher than controls but did not differ from each other except in norm beliefs. Treatment of BN should consider the similarity of BN to SUD in the pathological tendency for eating disorders.

We sought to identify cognitive-motivational dispositions for addictiveness in females with different addictions. For this purpose we assessed 20 women with substance use disorders (SUDs), 19 women who were routinely smoking at least 10 cigarettes daily for several years, and 24 control women. Cognitive-motivational dispositions were assessed with the 108-item Cognitive Orientation of Addictive Tendencies Questionnaire (COAT-Q), that converges to 25 content-related motivational themes and four basic belief types. Anxiety, depression, and addictiveness were also assessed. We found that compared with the controls, the SUD patients scored higher on addictiveness, depression, anxiety, all four COAT-Q-beliefs types, and three COAT-Q-theme clusters: dissociation from the self and from contacts with others, rejecting bad parts of the self, and the coexistent wish and fear of being loved. The chronic smokers scored mostly in-between the SUD patients and controls. These findings suggest that specific cognitive motivational dispositions may orient towards addictive behaviours in SUDs and chronic smoking.