Associations of personality traits with night eating among students in health sciences who live in a post-conflict setting

ABSTRACT

The intake of food later in the evening can have harmful health consequences. Some researchers suggest that having certain personality characteristics may be associated with the onset of eating disorders. There is a lack of studies on personality traits and night eating in a complex socio-political setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between personality traits and more intense night eating among students in northern Kosovo. A cross-section study was conducted in a population of health science students at the University in Kosovska Mitrovica. Students completed a socio-demographic questionnaire, Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), HEXACO-60 personality inventory, Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The independent variables (exposures) were the six domains of the HEXACO-60 (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience). The study outcome was the NEQ score. The study sample consisted of 534 students. The prevalence of night eating syndrome was 3.0%. The multivariate linear regression model suggested that stronger Extraversion and Openness to Experience were associated with more frequent night eating. Additionally, later bedtime, poorer sleep quality and higher scores on BDI and BAI were associated with more frequent night eating across all six models of models of personality traits. In a population of health science students who live in a complex socio-political environment, extraversion and openness to experience traits were associated with more frequent night eating. These findings could help researchers and clinicians tailor specific behavioral therapies to match the personality traits of people with night eating issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality traits
• night eating syndrome
• openness to experience
• extraversion
• post-conflict

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Contributions

VA contributed to study design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation and drafted the manuscript. MM, BJ, MG, JD, JS, AA and TG contributed to study design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation and provided a critical review of the intellectual content of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript and agree to be held accountable for all aspects of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The dataset underlying this study is available on a reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.