Night eating symptoms and sleep quality: the mediating role of somatization and depressive symptoms

This study aims to explore the mediating role of depressive and somatization symptoms in sleep disturbances observed in individuals with elevated night eating symptoms. Four hundred and sixty medical students who were receiving training in the preclinical period were included in the study. The participants were asked to complete the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15), Panic module (P-5), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scales. Analyses were conducted using comparison, correlation, and statistical mediation analysis with 5.000 bootstrap resamples. The mean age of participants was 19.90 ± 1.35 years. The mean PSQI score was 6.98 ± 2.66, with 30% ( n = 138) having good sleep quality (PSQI ≤ 5) and 70% ( n = 322) having poor sleep quality (PSQI > 5). No significant differences in sociodemographic characteristics were found between good and poor sleep quality groups ( p > 0.05). Participants with poor sleep quality had significantly higher NEQ, PHQ-9, PHQ-15, and GAD-7 scores ( p < 0.001). PSQI scores were positively correlated with NEQ (r = 0.498), PHQ-9 (r = 0.493), and PHQ-15 (r = 0.422). Mediation analysis revealed that PHQ-9 (β = 0.093, 95% CI: 0.008, 0.086) and PHQ-15 (β = 0.079, 95% CI 0.019, 0.063) significantly mediated the association between night eating symptoms and sleep quality, while P-5 and GAD-7 did not ( p > 0.05). Depressive symptoms and somatization exhibited a significant statistical mediatory role in the association between night eating symptom severity and sleep quality. Addressing these psychological factors could be critical in managing sleep disturbances in individuals with elevated night eating symptoms. Further research is needed to explore these relationships in more diverse populations.