Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Nov 8:7:39.
doi: 10.1186/s40337-019-0268-9. eCollection 2019.

Factor structure of the Night Eating Diagnostic Questionnaire (NEDQ) and an evaluation of the diagnostic criteria of the night eating syndrome

Laurence J Nolan  1 , Allan Geliebter  2   3
Affiliations

Factor structure of the Night Eating Diagnostic Questionnaire (NEDQ) and an evaluation of the diagnostic criteria of the night eating syndrome

Laurence J Nolan et al. J Eat Disord. .

Abstract

Background: The Night Eating Diagnostic Questionnaire (NEDQ) is a validated assessment of the night eating syndrome (NES) based on the proposed diagnostic criteria. While past results show that NEDQ is associated with psychopathology and body mass index (BMI), the relationships between the proposed NES diagnostic criteria and psychopathology and BMI have not been investigated. Thus, the relationships between the proposed NES diagnostic criteria and factors previously associated with NES, namely depression, "food addiction" (FA), sleep quality, and BMI were examined. Finally, the NEDQ factor structure was examined for the first time in order to determine whether the NEDQ is assessing NES appropriately.

Methods: The NEDQ, depression, sleep quality, and FA questionnaires were administered to a sample of older community members (n = 468) and a student sample (n = 254). Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was performed to examine the factor structure of the NEDQ. The relationships between the proposed diagnostic criteria and depression, sleep quality, FA, and BMI were examined using multiple regression.

Results: The proposed NES criteria were highly intercorrelated. PCA revealed a single factor solution for the NEDQ. In the community sample, depression was associated with the presence of five of nine proposed diagnostic criteria while poor sleep quality and FA were associated with the presence of seven and six criteria respectively. In the community sample, only the sleep problems and impairment/distress criteria were positively associated with BMI. In the student sample, fewer criteria were associated with psychopathology, and no criteria were associated with BMI.

Conclusions: These findings support the proposed criteria for diagnosis of NES. All proposed criteria were associated with at least one psychopathology measure. BMI was only associated with the sleep problems and impairment/distress criteria in the community sample. The PCA finding of a single factor indicates that the NEDQ is a cohesive assessment of NES, and that the NEDQ is a good measure of NES criteria.

Keywords: Body weight; Depression; Food addiction; Mood timing; Night eating syndrome; Sleep disturbance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scree plot for principal components analysis and parallel analysis for the NES criteria. The random line represents parallel analysis eigenvalues for randomly generated data for the same sample size
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Allison KC, Lundgren JD, O'Reardon JP, Geliebter A, Gluck ME, Vinai P, et al. Proposed diagnostic criteria for night eating syndrome. Int J Eat Disord. 2010;43:241–247. doi: 10.1002/eat.20693. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stunkard AJ, Grace WJ, Wolff HG. The night-eating syndrome: a pattern of food intake among certain obese patients. Am J Med. 1955;19:78–86. doi: 10.1016/0002-9343(55)90276-X. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Birketvedt GS, Florholmen J, Sundsfjord J, Dinges D, Bilker W, Stunkard A. Behavioral and neuroendocrine characteristics of the night-eating syndrome. JAMA. 1999;282:657–663. doi: 10.1001/jama.282.7.657. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vander Wal JS. Night eating syndrome: a critical review of the literature. Clin Psychol Rev. 2012;32:49–59. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2011.11.001. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gluck ME, Geliebter A, Satov T. Night eating syndrome is associated with depression, low self-esteem, reduced daytime hunger, and less weight loss in obese outpatients. Obesity. 2001;9:264–267. doi: 10.1038/oby.2001.31. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources