Stress and Night Eating Syndrome: a comparison study between a sample of psychiatric outpatients and healthy subjects

The Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is a disorder characterized by the clinical features of morning anorexia, evening hyperphagia, and insomnia with awakenings followed by nocturnal food ingestion. The core clinical feature appears to be a delay in the circadian timing of food intake. The diagnosis and early treatment of NES may represent an important means of prevention for obesity. Aims. The aim of the present study was to determine the vulnerability to develop NES between a clinical sample of patients with psychiatric disorders and a non clinical sample. We investigated a possible relation between stress and a dysfunctional eating behaviors as NES. Methods. The Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ) has been administered to 147 psychiatric outpatients and to 531 subjects attending the University of L'Aquila. The NEQ is a questionnaire used to evaluate the prevalence of NES. The sample has been also evaluated through the Stress-related Vulnerability Scale (SVS) to measure both perceived stress and social support. Results. The 8.2% of patients scored above the diagnostic cut-off of the NEQ, compared to the 2.1% in the sample of healthy subjects. The majority of patients who had shown NEQ>25 had a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD). The total scores on the NEQ were strongly associated with the SVS total score and especially with the "lack of social support" subscale. Conclusions. This study shows the increased vulnerability of NES in the sample of psychiatric patients compared to the sample of healthy subjects. The study further confirms the strong association between perceived stress, social support, altered eating behaviors and obesity.