(PS8-C69) The Structure of Physical Appearance Concerns: Evidence for Transdiagnosticity

Despite being a central feature in several psychiatric disorders, there is surprisingly little research investigating physical appearance concerns as a transdiagnostic construct. One barrier to progress has been the use of varied self-report measures of appearance concerns developed largely within disorder-specific frameworks, so it remains unclear to what degree these measures may be indexing the same construct. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in a large undergraduate sample (N = 704), the current study demonstrated a large common factor underlying three measures for assessing appearance concerns in relation to different disorders (eating, social anxiety, body dysmorphic), modeled as lower-order factors. Hierarchical mediation analyses revealed that this general factor accounted for most of the variance (83-100%) shared between each appearance concerns measure and scale-assessed symptoms of its affiliated disorder. Additionally, the general appearance concerns factor accounted for > 98% of the variance in a common disorder-scale factor representing the comorbidity among eating, social anxiety, and body dysmorphic symptoms. Collectively, our results demonstrate that measures devised to assess appearance concerns in relation to specific clinical conditions are in fact indicators of a transdiagnostic appearance concerns factor. Moreover, our findings suggest this transdiagnostic factor may account for a considerable portion of the observed comorbidity among appearance-related pathologies.