Abstract
Night eating syndrome (NES) severity is usually assessed with the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ). Although the most common version of the NEQ is composed of 14 items (NEQ-14), two additional items measuring distress associated with the night eating have been proposed, but they have never been included in past psychometric studies. The aim of the present study was to create an Italian version of the NEQ-16 (I-NEQ-16), with the inclusion of the proposed items for assessing the distress associated with night eating. A major objective of the study was to propose a unidimensional version of the I-NEQ-16 and investigate its psychometric properties. 482 Italian adults (380 women and 102 men; mean age = 25.5, SD = 10.9 years old) were administered the Italian versions of the NEQ, the Night Eating Diagnostic Questionnaire (NEDQ), and questionnaires measuring binge eating, emotional and external eating, diurnal chronotype, insomnia, and anxiety and depression severity. In order to improve the unidimensionality of the I-NEQ-16, we removed from further analyses items 1, 4, and 7, because they increased the heterogeneity of the measure. Confirmatory factor analysis, indicated the fit of a modified one-factor model, allowing correlated errors between three pairs of items. I-NEQ-16 scores were significantly associated with all concurrent questionnaire scores and were able to categorize individuals according to their diagnosis of NES according to the NEDQ. Thus, the I-NEQ-16 is a valid measure that is potentially useful for investigating correlates of night eating in the general population.
Highlights
Night eating syndrome (NES) is included in the Otherwise Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–5 (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and is characterized by morning loss of appetite, evening hyperphagia, repeated binge eating episodes during the night, and insomnia (Stunkard et al, 1955; Birketvedt et al, 1999; Allison et al, 2010)
Considering that distress associated with night eating is an important criterion when screening for the possible presence of NES, and the lack of validated Italian versions of the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ)-16, the main aim of the present study was to create an Italian version of the NEQ-16 (I-NEQ-16), which includes the two items proposed by Allison et al (2008) for assessing the distress associated with night eating
Item 13 was not included in the analyses because it is considered to be only a screening tool for differentiating the NES from the parasomnia sleep-related eating disorder and it is not included in the global score
Summary
Night eating syndrome (NES) is included in the Otherwise Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–5 (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and is characterized by morning loss of appetite, evening hyperphagia, repeated binge eating episodes during the night, and insomnia (Stunkard et al, 1955; Birketvedt et al, 1999; Allison et al, 2010). de Zwaan et al (2006) reported that, of 106 individuals with nighttime eating problems (i.e., individuals who self-reported “eat large amounts of food in the evenings and/or get up during the night to eat”), around 28% were currently taking antidepressants and 55.7% had lifetime major depression (assessed through a semi-structured clinical interview) Assessing both the prevalence and severity of the NES is an important public health goal because it is frequently associated with metabolic disorders (e.g., type 2 diabetes; Allison et al, 2007), and worse outcomes for nutritional treatments in obese patients (Gluck et al, 2001)
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