Obese patients with and without binge eating disorder showed significantly different temporal patterns influencing their eating behaviors (p=0.006), with BED patients exhibiting a positive lagged relationship from depression to eating behavior.
Observational (n=35)
The graphical VAR approach can recover dependence structures from electronic diary data, providing deeper insight into patient dynamics such as eating behaviors in obese patients.
Effect estimate: T = 61.04
p-value: p=0.006
In recent years, electronic diaries are increasingly used in medical research and practice to investigate patients' processes and fluctuations in symptoms over time. To model dynamic dependence structures and feedback mechanisms between symptom-relevant variables, a multivariate time series method has to be applied. We propose to analyse the temporal interrelationships among the variables by a structural modelling approach based on graphical vector autoregressive (VAR) models. We give a comprehensive description of the underlying concepts and explain how the dependence structure can be recovered from electronic diary data by a search over suitable constrained (graphical) VAR models. The graphical VAR approach is applied to the electronic diary data of 35 obese patients with and without binge eating disorder (BED). The dynamic relationships for the two subgroups between eating behaviour, depression, anxiety and eating control are visualized in two path diagrams. Results show that the two subgroups of obese patients with and without BED are distinguishable by the temporal patterns which influence their respective eating behaviours. The use of the graphical VAR approach for the analysis of electronic diary data leads to a deeper insight into patient's dynamics and dependence structures. An increasing use of this modelling approach could lead to a better understanding of complex psychological and physiological mechanisms in different areas of medical care and research.
Wild et al. (Thu,) conducted a observational in Obesity with and without binge eating disorder (n=35). Binge eating disorder (BED) vs. Obese patients without BED was evaluated on Difference in the structure of temporal relationships between subgroups (T = 61.04, p=0.006). Obese patients with and without binge eating disorder showed significantly different temporal patterns influencing their eating behaviors (p=0.006), with BED patients exhibiting a positive lagged relationship from depression to eating behavior.