Comparison of Emotional Regulation in People with Internet Addiction, Food Addiction, Opioid Dependency and Control Group

Objective:Difficulty in emotional regulation is an important component in the pathology of addictive types that comparison and evaluation of them as a common component can be helpful in understanding and treating these disorders. The purpose of this study was to compare emotional regulation in opioid addicts (heroin and opium), people with food addiction, people with internet addiction and control group. Methods and Materials: The overall design of the study was conducted within the framework of a comparative causal study. 120 subjects in each group (n = 30) (addicts, opiates, internet addict and control group) were selected by purposive sampling method. All subjects were male. Semi-structured clinical interview for one of the SCID-I-centered disorders, Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), Young Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was used to diagnose the disorders; DERS), filled. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data. Results: Overall index of difficulty in emotional regulation and all its subscales were higher in all three groups of opioid addicts, people with food addiction and people with internet addiction than the control group, and this difference was statistically significant. There was no significant difference between the three groups of food addiction, opioid addicts, and people with food addiction in terms of non-emotional response variable, difficulty in targeting behavior, but no significant difference between the three groups. Difficulty in impulse control, lack of emotional awareness, limited access to strategies, emotional ambiguity, and overall index between groups Significant difference was observed (p <0.05). Conclusion: This study showed deficits in emotional regulation in opioid addicts, people with internet addiction and people with eating addiction compared to the control group. The study found that impulse control and emotional adjustment were better for people with internet addiction than for people with eating disorders as well as those with opioid dependents.