Relationship between night eating syndrome and sleep quality among university students in Palestine

Abstract Background Night eating syndrome (NES) is an eating disorder in which at least one-third of one’s daily caloric intake is consumed after the last meal of the day or throughout the nocturnal evening on at least two consecutive occasions each week. In the literature, the prevalence of NES among university students ranged from 4.2 to 15%. Aim The purpose of this study was to find out how common NES is among Palestinian university students, as well as the association between NES, sleep quality, BMI, socioeconomic factors, and lifestyle factors. Methods Students from An-Najah National University completed an online questionnaire. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Eating Questionnaire (NEQ) were employed. Results A total of 333 participants took part in the study. The average age of the participants was 21.66 years (range: 16 to 33). The presence of NES was identified in 82.6% of the study subjects. There was no evidence of a link between NES and BMI, sociodemographic variables, or lifestyle factors. Higher scores on subjective sleep quality ( p < .01), sleep latency ( p < .01), and daytime dysfunction ( p < .05) scores were found to be linked with NES. Additional to this, the NEQ scores were shown to be substantially connected with these scores, as well as the sleep duration scores ( p < .05). Subjective sleep quality ( p < .01) and sleep latency ( p < .01) were revealed to be significant predictors of the NEQ score. Conclusion NES was significantly related to sleep quality subscales among Palestinian university students. Moreover, subjective sleep quality and sleep latency predicted NEQ score.