Objective: The current study aims to compare the defense mechanisms and personality traits
among teenagers with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and normal individuals.
Materials and Methods: Incurrent casual-comparative study, 220 teenagers with an average age
of 16.74±6.08 and age range of 13-17 were randomly selected from among high school students,
who were diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder in fall 2014 and 220 other
peers with matching demographic characteristics were selected as the control group. Both groups
were asked to fill Eysenckpersonality questionnaire and Andrews’ Defense Style Questionnaire.
Data was analyzed via multivariate analysis of variance.
Results: The average scores of teenagers with ARFID was higher than the control group
regarding immature and neurotic defense style, neuroticism and extraversion; with respect to
mature defense style variable average scores of teenagers with ARFID was lower comparing to
control group. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between personality
traits and defence styles of teenagers with ARFID and normal teenagers.
