An examination of emotional eating behavior in individuals with a severe mental disorder

Emotional eating behavior is commonly accompanied by negative emotions in individuals with a severe mental disorder in community. This descriptive study has aimed to identify emotional eating behavior and the factors acting on emotional eating behavior and to investigate the relationship of uncontrolled eating and cognitive restriction scores with emotional eating behavior in individuals with a severe mental disorder followed up in community mental health centers (CMHC). The study included 130 patients with a severe mental disorder. The Emotional Eater Questionnaire (EEQ) and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R21) were used for data collection. The chi-square significance test and correlation analyses were used for determining the correlation of emotional eating behavior scores across independent variables. The prevalence of emotional eating behavior was 49.22% among individuals with a severe mental disorder. The mean EEQ score of the individuals was 11.74 ± 7.42. Emotional eating behavior was observed in 56.7% of individuals at ages from 35 to 49 years, in 62.5% of women, in 58.6% of individuals with a history of dieting, and in 61.2% of individuals with night eating behavior. This study has shown that emotional eating behavior can occur in individuals with a severe mental disorder independent of the diagnosis, use of antipsychotic medications, body mass index (BMI), physical exercise, and eating behavior. It was observed that emotional eating behavior was correlated with being middle-aged, being female, and night eating behavior.