Eating behaviour and its relationship with stress and parental nurturance among Lithuanian II and III-year medical students

Introduction. Medical students are known to experience higher stress levels, primarily due to academic pressures, financial concerns, and social expectations. These stressors often lead to maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as emotional and stress eating. Additionally, parental nurturance plays a role in shaping responses to stress, according to literature, higher parental nurturance is linked with lower levels of stress and healthy eating behaviour. While prior studies have explored the factors individually, this study specifically aims to explore how perceived stress and parental nurturance are associated with II and III – year Lithuanian medical students’ eating behaviour. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted with medical students from Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) and Vilnius University (VU). To collect the data self-report instruments were used: Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire, Salzburg Emotional and Stress Eating Scales, Parental Nurturance Scale. Convenience sampling method was used. Sample included 231 students, 77.9% were female, ages ranged from 18 to 36 years. Results. Females reported higher levels of perceived stress than males (p < 0.05). On the whole, medical students report highest levels of stress in academic stressors subscale. Participants indicated that parental nurturance was not associated with levels of perceived stress. Students reported consuming less when they experience more negative emotions and/or stress (over 50% of students). Results suggested a positive relationship interpersonal and intrapersonal related stressors and anxiety related eating (OR = 2.02, p = 0.042), social related stressors and anger related eating (OR = 3.15, p = 0.026) – having higher perceived stress scores significantly increased the odds of eating more than usual when anxious or angry. Conclusion. Findings of this study support that higher levels of perceived stress were positively associated with increased emotional and stress eating behaviour. Medical students indicated that parental nurturance had no association with stress levels or their eating behaviour.